Working time and leave

Holiday pay on termination: 'relevant agreement'

When calculating pay for accrued but untaken statutory holiday at the end of employment under the Working Time Regulations, an employment contract (or other agreement) cannot stipulate a formula for calculating that holiday pay which would result in a worker being paid less than the usual amount they would have been paid for working.

Holiday pay for those with irregular hours

Entitlement to holiday pay under the Working Time Regulations 1998 does not need to be pro-rated for part-year workers

Holidays: carry-over of right to payment

A worker who took unpaid holiday because his employer refused to pay for it accumulated the right to paid annual leave for which he was entitled to compensation on termination.

Standby periods and 'working time'

Where a worker must be contactable and attend work in a specified response time, he or she will only be working for the purposes of the Working Time Directive if such constraints ‘objectively and very significantly’ affect the worker’s ability to devote that time to his or her own interests.

Rest breaks: threat to dismiss was unlawful detriment

A worker, who had been denied a rest break and who was subsequently threatened with dismissal following his refusal to return to work, suffered an unlawful detriment.

Voluntary overtime may be taken into account when calculating holiday pay

Voluntary overtime should be factored into the calculation of holiday as long as it is it is sufficiently regular and settled so that payments for overtime amount to ‘normal’ remuneration says the Court of Appeal.

Keeping records of all hours worked

European law obliges employers to establish a system enabling the duration of daily working to be measured.

Personal injury damages permissible for breach of WTR

Although a breach of the Working Time Regulations cannot lead to an injury to feelings award, compensation can reflect personal injury suffered as a consequence of the breach.

Compensatory rest break need not be uninterrupted

Where a worker is entitled, under the Working Time Regulations, to ‘compensatory rest’ instead of a 20-minute uninterrupted rest break, the rest need not, in every case, consist of an uninterrupted 20 minutes, even if it would, in principle, be possible to provide such a break.

Short-time working and holiday pay

Whilst periods of short-time working may reduce the minimum period of statutory leave to less than four weeks, they cannot reduce the amount off pay due when leave is taken – and overtime doesn’t necessarily have to be included in the calculation of holiday pay.

Statutory holidays - use it or lose it?

Workers cannot be deprived of paid statutory holiday entitlement on the termination of employment or at the end of a particular reference period/authorised carry-over period unless the employer has ensured ‘specifically and transparently’ that the worker is given the opportunity to take the leave.

'On call' at home and whether working time

The nature of the restrictions that are placed on a worker will determine whether ‘on-call’ time qualifies as ‘working time’.

Detriment and injury to feelings awards

Injury to feelings compensation can be awarded in detriment claims under the Working Time Regulations.

Enforcement of paid annual leave under Working Time Regulations is defective

The means of enforcing rights to paid holiday in the Working Time Regulations is incompatible with EU law according to the European Court of Justice. Employers must give workers the facility to take paid holiday, workers do not have to take holiday to be able to claim payment for it, refusal to pay is considered as ‘prevention’ and workers can claim unpaid holiday for the whole of their employment or up to the date when paid holiday was offered, whichever is the earliest.

Voluntary overtime and holiday pay

In the first binding authority to consider the issue, the EAT has held that entirely voluntary overtime counts as ‘normal remuneration’ for the purposes of calculating statutory holiday pay under reg. 13 of the Working Time Regulations (i.e. the 20 days’ leave provided for by the Working Time Directive).

Three-month rule on backdated holiday pay survives legal challenge

Fulton v Bear Scotland Ltd No. 2

 

The three-month rule which means that workers will lose the right to claim back pay for underpaid holidays where there has been three months or more between underpayments has been upheld on appeal.

Does a worker have to request a statutory rest break?

Grange v Abellio London Ltd

 

The EAT confirms that it is the employer’s obligation to ensure that workers take statutory rest breaks - it is not necessary for the worker to ask for a break before the Working Time Regulations are breached.

Holiday pay must include results-based commission

British Gas Trading Ltd v Lock

 

In the long-running litigation relating to what should and should not be paid to a worker when they are on holiday, British Gas went to the Court of Appeal to argue that this should not include results-based commission and that English law, as currently drafted, could not be read as complying with EU law and therefore a change of law is required. This would have the practical effect of there being no ability to bring back claims until the new law is imposed. It lost on both counts.