Public Holidays: Legality?

rG-tom

rG-tom

rG-tom

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Afternoon folks,

What's the legality of Bank Holidays?

My employer has been quite clever in the wording of holidays in our contract, in that they specificed "x days plus 8 public holidays" rather than where most contracts say "x days plus public holidays".

They are saying we can book the extra bank holiday off out of our holiday allowance, take it off unpaid, or otherwise have to work. Is this legal?

If so, what's the actual point of public holidays if they're not legally enforceable?

Thanks,

Tom.
 
You're SOL I'm afraid in the same way that people with 'twenty-eight' days holiday would be equally screwed.

Plus a public holiday clearly isn't applicable to all the public - the shops are still mostly all open after all :p
 
Employees’ entitlement
There has always been confusion about the status of bank holidays. It is important to note that employees do not have an automatic right to paid leave on bank holidays.

Although many employers do close down on such days or offer employees who work extra pay or a day off in lieu, they are not required to do so.

Any right to time off or extra pay for working on a bank holiday depends on the terms of the contract of employment.

The only legal obligation on an employer is to allow their workers the minimum annual leave laid down in the Working Time Regulations 1998 (28 days for a full-time worker).

Many businesses, such as those in the retail sector, open on bank holidays and need to maintain staff cover. Bank holidays are usually treated just like any other day therefore and employees have to make a request for annual leave in the normal way if they do not wish to work the bank holiday.

Where an employment contract provides for “twenty days holiday plus bank holidays” then an employee will be entitled to the royal wedding bank holiday next year in addition to the usual eight bank holidays.

Where the employment contract simply states that the employee is entitled to “twenty eight days holiday per year” there will be no such contractual entitlement. An employer with such a holiday clause may decide to close down on the 29 April 2011 but require employees to take the day out of their annual holiday allowance.

However, the best approach in such cases, and in situations where there is no consistent contractual wording so that some staff are entitled to the extra day but some are not, may be to allow all staff an extra day off in order to maintain good employment relations.

Whatever employers do they should communicate this clearly and in good time to their employees and ensure that there is consistency of treatment across their workforce.
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Ouch thats not good.

Used to get no bank holidays but a massive increased holiday in place of it.

Current job gives bank holidays & days off so guess im lucky.
 
it's a bit of a stupid one if not just from a staff moral perspective, none of the businesses we are working with are open and 60% of the staff have booked it off anyway, so it probably would have been better for the company's moral to let people have it off! It's a small(ish) company with 60 employees in one place, with the MD etc working from the office.

We're the only place I've found who aren't having it treated like a normal bank holiday (ie I know some folk who are getting their usual 2x pay for it or time in lieu, but no one that are having it treated as a normal day).
 
If your contract allows for 8 public holidays off a year, you're screwed. To be fair, your employer doesn't even have to give you the days off on the actual bank holidays with a contract like that - they can make you work Christmas day, boxing day and new year's day and just give you three extra annual leave days off to use up in regular time before the end of the tax year - without paying you a penny extra for the privilege and, assuming you're responsible for your own travel to and from work, leaving you to figure out your travel arrangements. Also, I'm not sure that most contracts would say "plus public holidays" - in my experience, they've pretty much all specified 8 public holidays.

For reference, the NHS as a whole has decided their employers aren't entitled to an extra public holiday this year, despite what everyone else in the country is doing, but they're leaving it to each trust to figure out how to handle it. The vast majority of trusts are operating it as a normal day with a 'good-will' day off in lieu, a very small number are paying bank holiday rates and a very small number aren't doing either - just a regular day.
 
Deadbeat said:
If your contract allows for 8 public holidays off a year, you're screwed. To be fair, your employer doesn't even have to give you the days off on the actual bank holidays with a contract like that - they can make you work Christmas day, boxing day and new year's day and just give you three extra annual leave days off to use up in regular time before the end of the tax year - without paying you a penny extra for the privilege and, assuming you're responsible for your own travel to and from work, leaving you to figure out your travel arrangements. Also, I'm not sure that most contracts would say "plus public holidays" - in my experience, they've pretty much all specified 8 public holidays.

For reference, the NHS as a whole has decided their employers aren't entitled to an extra public holiday this year, despite what everyone else in the country is doing, but they're leaving it to each trust to figure out how to handle it. The vast majority of trusts are operating it as a normal day with a 'good-will' day off in lieu, a very small number are paying bank holiday rates and a very small number aren't doing either - just a regular day.
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surely with them wording it as 8 public holidays, they have to give us 8 of the 9 public holidays?
 
rG-tom said:
surely with them wording it as 8 public holidays, they have to give us 8 of the 9 public holidays?
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They give you annual leave entitlement to the tune of x many days plus additional days to cover public holidays, but they don't have to fall on the public holidays, they just have to give you the time back if you work it - and they only have to do that because they put it in the contract themselves.
 
If they have specified x days plus 8 public holidays, then I would actually say you have x plus 8 public holiday days i.e. you have 8 public holiday days off, not 8 random days.
 
I don't think so, if they just put twenty-eight days then you're right but if it specifies 8 public holidays in your leave entitlement then you are entitled to 8 public holidays as leave, unsurprisingly :p
 
It's an awkward one for employers and it really depends on the company and what sort of staff you employ, for example a shelf stacker is easier to replace than a nuclear physicist (should they decide to be a pain over the situation).

We've been given the extra day's holiday with no questions asked, but then again the company's employee owned and everyone charges out at dayrates around the 1k area so it's not like we are little kids and it's always best to keep your staff onside for longterm profit and goodwill sakes.
 
As already answered you are not entitled to depending on your contract. I know companies whose contracts say x days plus bank and public holidays and they are having to honour the wedding.

Don;t forget there's another extra day next year you will miss out on as well.
 
I wouldn't fret too much, look at it the same way that on a leap year you don't get paid for working an extra day in February :p (if you're monthly salaried anyhow!)
 
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