Following the recent highly publicised cases in relation to holiday pay, we have received a lot of enquires in relation to this. In order to assess whether you have a claim, you will need to consider the below:
- Are you a worker / agency worker / casual worker or full/part time employed? (Self-employed persons, armed forces, the police and civil protection services are not entitled to statutory paid holiday).
- Are you over school leaving age?
If you answered yes to the two questions above, then you have the right to take 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. Four weeks of this are Ordinary Annual Leave (“OAL”), and 1.6 weeks are Additional Annual Leave (“AAL”). Previously, employers have only used an employee’s basic pay to calculate how much holiday pay they are entitled to. The recent case law has changed this so that, if an employee works regular overtime, then this should be taken into account when calculating holiday pay in relation to OAL. This will not apply to AAL.
Bringing a Holiday Pay Claim
The Working Time Regulations 1998 state that workers have to bring backdated payment claims within three-months from the date of the unlawful deduction. This means that you are unlikely to be able to bring a claim for ‘overtime’ holiday pay since 1998 unless you have consistently received holiday pay during that period without a three month break. Any three month break would stop the claim. For example, therefore, if you received holiday pay in October 2014, but had not had any time off between June and October 2014, then you could only bring a claim for the most recent period of annual leave.
The only way a claim for pay since 1998 would succeed would be if you had consistently taken at least one day off as holiday every three months since 1998. You would need to provide evidence of all of the holidays that you have taken and wish to claim in relation to.
You should also note these claims may not be worth as much as you think. The claim is for the additional holiday pay. If you earn £20 overtime a week, then that would be the maximum that you could claim per week.
If, having considered the above, you still think you have a viable claim, please do not hesitate to contact our Employment Department.
