Part time and Public holiday

Ronin247

So my wife normally works part time, 20 hours per week. Due to staff shortage during Covid she has had to work 40 hours per week. Her employer says that as she is contracted for 20 hours then she is only entitled to 4 hours for a Bank/Public holiday. I feel that as she has worked 40+ hours per week since April it should be 8 hours.

Does anyone know what is correct?

blindsider

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/public_holidays_in_ireland.html

Your entitlement to public holidays is set out in the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. Most employees are entitled to paid leave on public holidays. One exception is part-time employees who have not worked for their employer at least 40 hours in total in the 5 weeks before the public holiday.

If you qualify for public holiday benefit you are entitled to one of the following:

A paid day off on the public holiday
An additional day of annual leave
An additional day's pay
A paid day off within a month of the public holiday

Dempo1

blindsider wrote: »

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/public_holidays_in_ireland.html

Your entitlement to public holidays is set out in the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. Most employees are entitled to paid leave on public holidays. One exception is part-time employees who have not worked for their employer at least 40 hours in total in the 5 weeks before the public holiday.

If you qualify for public holiday benefit you are entitled to one of the following:

A paid day off on the public holiday
An additional day of annual leave
An additional day's pay
A paid day off within a month of the public holiday

100% correct, I wondered the fact she's already been working more than 40hrs in total over 5 weeks prior to the addition hours recently is there not a case whereby her employer has not been adhering to the Act.

Ronin247

Sorry for not getting back sooner

Her employers position is that he is paying her for the bank holiday at her contracted hours... i.e. 4 hours for the day.
If she is working full time hours (8hours/day) should it not be 8 hours pay?

I have gone through the link provided by blindsider and cannot find the answer.

An Ri rua

Ronin247 wrote: »

Sorry for not getting back sooner

Her employers position is that he is paying her for the bank holiday at her contracted hours... i.e. 4 hours for the day.
If she is working full time hours (8hours/day) should it not be 8 hours pay?

I have gone through the link provided by blindsider and cannot find the answer.

You don't even need to go to blindsider's link. It's in the post. She's entitled to the Bank Holiday.
Not only that, but as Dempo1 alludes, she may be entitled to quite a number of backdated bank holidays also.

Dempo1

Ronin247 wrote: »

Sorry for not getting back sooner

Her employers position is that he is paying her for the bank holiday at her contracted hours... i.e. 4 hours for the day.
If she is working full time hours (8hours/day) should it not be 8 hours pay?

I have gone through the link provided by blindsider and cannot find the answer.

Whilst technically her contracted hours are relevant to the payment of bank Holidays, that is 4 hours if that's what she normally works, I believe (open of correction) if she has worked the requisite amount of hours prior to the bank holiday, it should be 8 hrs. I think the employer is being overly pedantic, sticking to what their understanding of the entitlement is, not what she would be entitled to having worked full hours. It's really down to how long she's been doing full hours. Your initial post suggested she was not getting bank holiday paid generally but that now does not appear to be the case.

blindsider

Although not worded well for this case, here is the relevant part:

One exception is part-time employees who have not worked for their employer at least 40 hours in total in the 5 weeks before the public holiday.

So:-

- An employee on normal hrs gets full BH entitlement - Yes.

- An employee who is p/t time gets the pro-rata or similar - Yes.

EXCEPT - if the employee has worked 40hrs (in total) in the last 5 weeks then that employee gets the full BH entitlement. (The contracted hrs are on paper - the actual hrs worked is what matters.)

The employee could email CA and show their employer the written answer. Is there a Payroll/Accts dept? They are often quite good at this stuff....

Dempo1

blindsider wrote: »

Although not worded well for this case, here is the relevant part:

One exception is part-time employees who have not worked for their employer at least 40 hours in total in the 5 weeks before the public holiday.

So:-

- An employee on normal hrs gets full BH entitlement - Yes.

- An employee who is p/t time gets the pro-rata or similar - Yes.

EXCEPT - if the employee has worked 40hrs (in total) in the last 5 weeks then that employee gets the full BH entitlement. (The contracted hrs are on paper - the actual hrs worked is what matters.)

The employee could email CA and show their employer the written answer. Is there a Payroll/Accts dept? They are often quite good at this stuff....

Thanks for that, I wasn't 100% on if it was more about the hours worked etc

Ronin247

blindsider wrote: »

Although not worded well for this case, here is the relevant part:

One exception is part-time employees who have not worked for their employer at least 40 hours in total in the 5 weeks before the public holiday.

So:-

- An employee on normal hrs gets full BH entitlement - Yes.

- An employee who is p/t time gets the pro-rata or similar - Yes.

EXCEPT - if the employee has worked 40hrs (in total) in the last 5 weeks then that employee gets the full BH entitlement. (The contracted hrs are on paper - the actual hrs worked is what matters.)

The employee could email CA and show their employer the written answer. Is there a Payroll/Accts dept? They are often quite good at this stuff....

The employer is basically saying "yes, you are entitled to BH pay, it is a days pay which is 4 hours according to your contract "

I think the relevant act/section is S.I. 475/1997 section 6 which says the rate should be 1/10 of her average pay for the previous 2 weeks.

I will post the link when I get to a laptop.

Thank you all ( Dempo1, An Ri rua and blindsider) for helping us.

Dempo1

Ronin247 wrote: »

The employer is basically saying "yes, you are entitled to BH pay, it is a days pay which is 4 hours according to your contract "

I think the relevant act/section is S.I. 475/1997 section 6 which says the rate should be 1/10 of her average pay for the previous 2 weeks.

I will post the link when I get to a laptop.

Thank you all ( Dempo1, An Ri rua and blindsider) for helping us.

By the way, what or who is CA??

Citizens Advice I think, good luck

blindsider

Also:

https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/publications_forms/guide_to_employment_rights_nera_.pdf

P. 6....the last page has contact details...

BOL!