General Chat

Employees have won a ground breaking case at the Employment Appeal Tribunal to include overtime in holiday pay. This means all indivuals working voluntary overtime could claim for additional holiday pay - currently, only basic pay counts when calculating holiday pay.

The details of the full judgement, including whether claims can be backdated, have yet to be released.

Already various employer organisations are saying employers could be liable for billions of pounds in backdated pay, and warn of the possibility of job losses, delays to major infrastructure projects, and of some businesses going to the wall.

The Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that the government will review the judgement in detail as a matter of urgency - to properly understand the financial exposure employers face, he has said that they have set up a task force of representatives from government and business to discuss how they can limit the impact on business.

Most commentators expect the judgement to be appealed.

Do you think overtime should be taken into account when calculatiing holiday pay?

Yes.
Why on earth not ?

I think many companies already take overtime into account when calculating holiday pay, I am pretty sure all the companies I have worked for did this - one thing I am sure about, is that this judgement, will be used by David Cameron, George Osborne, and Iain Duncan Smith as another club to bash the unions with.

Yes - provided that the working of overtime was mandatory, expected, included in the vacancy notice, or by any other means such that it was really part of the basic wage.

What are the details of the case? Especially the terms of the employment contract?

This will require a rewrite of all of payroll programs?

But surely there has to be a lower limit? If someone works an hour or so on just one day in the year the calculated additional holiday pay would be "two thirds of three fifths of **** all".

Now I used to work overtime every week and I am all for getting back some of the things we used to take for granted. Like teabreaks, the "biscuit" lady going around the office with her trolley, and NEVER ringing an employee at home when sick or on holiday.
Overtime I thought was a thing of the past, all the young people I know end up doing it for free just to keep their jobs and are on call by mobile even after they have left work! I have a relative who gets three weeks a year only and NO sick pay from his employer.

I do not however feel that overtime should be part of holiday pay, if you are paid by the hour you can only expect to get paid for the hours you are contracted to!

( for Mayfield )

28 days paid holiday, sick pay are statutory obligations.
For part time workers holiday & sick pay pro rata.
Contract and agency workers are also entitled to holiday and sick pay (*).

Any employer failing to pay can be made to pay + arrears. Failure to pay is also a criminal offence - stiff fines.

(*) This was decided after another long and bruising battle between UKGov and the courts. The problem of UKGov is at the end of the day pay policy is decided within the framework of the EU Single Market Act ( invented by Maggie, remember her ) and it is next to impossible for the UK to have a holiday pay regime with large differences to the EU norm as otherwise UK employers would have a single market advantage. "Working Time Directives" was another notable UKGov defeat. Yet another was equal pay which hit Birmingham City Council very hard. There is also an ongoing case re supermarket pay which will just add to Tesco's problems.

Who says the EU does nothing for the workers ?

Leaving the EU would not make a ha'porth of difference as in order to get a Norway/Switzerland type "trading only" agreement the UK would have to sign up to all the EU law anyway. It would also of course not have any say in new laws even though it would be subject to them.

UKIP and the Tory replicants are baying for the moon.

SSP is about £87 pw after 4 days that's about as much use as a chocolate fire guard
to someone with kids and a mortgage to pay when their wage is around £35000 pa.
Even the average wage in the UK is in the region of £26000.
Any employer worth his salt should pay full wages for at least a few weeks to a sick employee. I don't rank SSP as filling the bill. ;-)

SSP is a backstop it is not meant as a substitute for insurance.

Govt and LA employees all get 6 months full pay when off sick and then 6 months half pay. A lot of leading private sector employees do the same. Shops (as usual ), farmers, startups and small firms at best pay sick pay for a while depending on length of employment then dump their staff on SSP if they keep them on at all... as I said get insurance at least to cover mortgage payments. It is pretty dumb not to.

Sick pay etc is another area of employment law which Brussels intends to upgrade to best practice. By the time Brussels has done the Brits will be flooding into Krakow!

Years ago in Oz, this right was fought for....... and everybody (even those who didn't regularly work overtime) got leave "loading" for holiday pay ~ 17.5% of their salary.

I don't know what the rate is now.

When I was at work,40 hours basic, weekend overtime,there was an option of being available for 5, 5/8 and 5/8 hours
on days
5 Friday T x1.5 (7.5)
5 or 8 Saturday@t x1.5( 7.5......12)
5 or 8 Sunday @T x 2( 10.......16)

and also 2 hours on days mon-frid

@T x 1.3


on nights o/t pay was T x 1 and 5/6

Loads a money.........while it lasted........


trouble is some blokes spent all their lives at work..........and pegged out shortly after retiring.......and some didn't make 65.......


but holiday pay was basic hours only(plus any overtime owed.......)

many blokes would work the first weekend of their hols............and pre book the last weekend.........

I don't have a working contract, my job works a bit like "Bank Staff".
I am asked to work whenever they need staff, but only if it suits me.

I was only ever paid for the hours that I worked, but about 2 years ago, the rules changed.

ALL the hours that I work are now classed as overtime
My employers work out how many hours I worked in a set period and calculate the holidays that I would otherwise be entitled to.

I now get pro rata holiday pay.

Theoretically, under the previous system, even if I worked 5 days per week x 52 weeks per year, I wasn't entitled to any holiday pay
I have no contract, therefore if I wished to go on holiday for 2 weeks, I didn't qualify for holiday pay .... I would simply have been be classed as "not available to work"

No - overtime is a way of boosting your pay (irrespective of how much or little your earn)

It is not a part of your pay. It is something you choose to do.

I am flabbergasted.

I was annoyed when I worked for Royal Mail, when they introduced something called 'scheduled attendance' to some of their duties (with Union approval!!!) which is in effect compulsory overtime. Outrageous.....

I do think holiday pay should be calculated on all hours worked, irresepective of whether these are contracted hours or overtime hours.
Not everyone choses to do overtime, for some it's compulsory

I don't have any contracted hours.
ALL hours that I work as classed as overtime, irrespective of how many.

I feel that I am entitled to the pro rata holiday payments that I now receive.