Is this legal and is it fair if not?

[dieseluser07]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 16 October 2016 at 15:51

[robemcdonald]

dieseluser07 said:

I service equipment around the country, i am contracted 36 hours a week monday to sunday, only get my rota up to a month in advance due to the nature of the job.

My annual leave is 25 days or the equivalent in hours (by days they mean 7.2 hour days which we never do), we pretty much always work 3 12 hour shifts.

Now our new manager who started 2 months ago who brought in a rule whereby, if we want 3 days annual leave, i.e. friday satday sunday, we have to use a full weeks annual leave, i.e. 36 hours because we have to put in 12 hours every day we want off, unless its a full week we obviously just put 36 hours.

Is that legal? Having to put in a full weeks annual leave for half a weeks time off?

Not an expert on this but do you get paid a monthly wage or by the hour? If it's monthly I would have thought a day is a day regardless of how many hours you work.
Do you have a hr department? If so ask them.

[Magic919]

You work 12 hour shifts, three a week. To take off the three working days you must use 36 hours of leave. Is that it?

Sounds ok to me, if we ignore breaks during the day.

[R8Steve]

I'm not seeing the issue here.

You need to use 36 hours holiday to take 36 hours off.

You are still off for a week regardless.

[dieseluser07]

robemcdonald said:

Not an expert on this but do you get paid a monthly wage or by the hour? If it's monthly I would have thought a day is a day regardless of how many hours you work.
Do you have a hr department? If so ask them.

I get paid a fixed salary per year.

We work 36 hours per week but nowhere in the contract does it say 3 12 hour shifts, it just says you will be expected to work whatever, it just so happens that we always work 12 hour days.

[StuTheGrouch]

dieseluser07 said:

robemcdonald said:

Not an expert on this but do you get paid a monthly wage or by the hour? If it's monthly I would have thought a day is a day regardless of how many hours you work.
Do you have a hr department? If so ask them.

I get paid a fixed salary per year.

We work 36 hours per week but nowhere in the contract does it say 3 12 hour shifts, it just says you will be expected to work whatever, it just so happens that we always work 12 hour days.

So, typically your week (Mon-Sun) will be-

3x days a week (12 hours x 3 = 36 hours)

4x days a week not working

Is that correct?

So a 36 hour holiday request will result in:

3x days a week not working

4x days a week also not working

Therefore, 7 days off.


Have I misunderstood that? If not, then whether you book a week off and get 3 days in that week off, or you simply get the week off, the result will be the same. Unless they are shysters and allocate you some hours on the dates you would otherwise have been off anyway.

[dieseluser07]

StuTheGrouch said:

So, typically your week (Mon-Sun) will be-

3x days a week (12 hours x 3 = 36 hours)

4x days a week not working

Is that correct?

So a 36 hour holiday request will result in:

3x days a week not working

4x days a week also not working

Therefore, 7 days off.


Have I misunderstood that? If not, then whether you book a week off and get 3 days in that week off, or you simply get the week off, the result will be the same. Unless they are shysters and allocate you some hours on the dates you would otherwise have been off anyway.

If i put the 3 days in yes i will be off the whole week, my point is though i only need 3 days off and i am happy to work hours the rest of the week, so im basically putting a full week in but only need 3 days off, so in essence using my annual leave up a lot quicker than id hope to.

[Magic919]

Unless they permit some kind of shift swap with a colleague or allow you to work days you are 'off' on the roster, then they are quite within their rights.

[StuTheGrouch]

dieseluser07 said:

If i put the 3 days in yes i will be off the whole week, my point is though i only need 3 days off and i am happy to work hours the rest of the week, so im basically putting a full week in but only need 3 days off, so in essence using my annual leave up a lot quicker than id hope to.

I fail to see an issue then. 36 hours = 1 week.

Look at it from their perspective, if it worked how you hoped it would then if you have, let's say, 25 days annual leave then that would amount to over 8 weeks off. For other staff doing regular hours, but still 36 hours over a week, their 25 days would amount to 5 weeks off. So in the current scheme, all staff get 5 weeks off. Sounds fair to me.

[mr_spock]

Just another opinion, but logical/fair is not the same as what's in your contract. AIUI:

They are saying that they (not you) ask you to work 3 x 12 hour shifts to make up a 36 hour week. However, you would be available to work 5 x 7(odd) shifts instead. So. in the week where you want 3 days off, you could work 2 regular days except that doesn't suit their rostering.

As you're on a monthly wage, the rostering is for their convenience, not yours. You've said you are available for work on days 1/2, so you are only taking 3 days off.

IF you were paid hourly, then they'd have a point. As it is, I can't see it.

Talk to HR and (I suggest) CAB or a quick call with an employment solicitor in case it turns nasty. Or, of course, roll over and accept that you just took a week off.

[R8Steve]

You have two options really.

Option one - work the standard 7.2 hours a day 5 days a week then when you take 3 days off you will have used 21.6 hours holiday

Option two - continue to work 12 hours a day 3 days a week and accept that if you want those 3 days off you need to use 36 hours to do so (you get the rest of the week off though as per your shift pattern.

You can't have both.

Can you not change the 3 days you work one week to suit?

[snobetter]

I can't see the issue, if your custom is to work 12 hour shifts and you want the day off, 12 hours off your leave? If you can swap shifts, do so, if not you have to use leave.

[edc]

It sounds like you may have been having it particularly good under a previous manager but perhaps didn't realise it.

If previously you only had to clock 7.2 hours leave to get a full 12 hour rostered day off then you have effectively been getting more holidays then you have been entitled to.

[CaptainSlow]

dieseluser07 said:

If i put the 3 days in yes i will be off the whole week, my point is though i only need 3 days off and i am happy to work hours the rest of the week, so im basically putting a full week in but only need 3 days off, so in essence using my annual leave up a lot quicker than id hope to.

Why not just request you don't work those days when the rota is being done, then you don;t have to use any leave.

[4x4Tyke]

The manager certainly cannot arbitrarily change the terms without your agreement. So this is going to hang on the wording of your contract and how pay and holiday is a accumulated, based on hours or days.

You will get more specialist advice ACAS than CAB.

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1364

[davek_964]

edc said:

It sounds like you may have been having it particularly good under a previous manager but perhaps didn't realise it.

If previously you only had to clock 7.2 hours leave to get a full 12 hour rostered day off then you have effectively been getting more holidays then you have been entitled to.

Yep, that's how I read it. Before, there were less hours being taken out of your holiday than you were taking off. Now, the hours you get off are what's deducted from your leave which seems entirely fair.

To look at it another way - you say you get 25 days annual leave which is a fairly common amount. Most people who get 25 days holiday therefore book 25 days off in a year. In previous years, how many days would you book as leave in a year? I'm guessing between 35 and 40. I imagine it does seem like bad news that it will now be 25 but I think you need to be grateful for however long you've been getting such a good deal.

[louiebaby]

The 25 days holiday sort of only works for 9-5, Monday to Friday folk. What you rightly mention is that this actually means 36 hrs per week x 5 weeks.

You should also get your bank holidays, which in this case should equal 7.2 hours. On a week with a bank holiday in, you'd be expected to work 28.8 hours.

If you work your 36 hours a week as 3 x 12hrs, you would need to use 5 days holiday to guarantee that week off. If you need to guarantee specific days off before rotas are announced, then it's probably legal and relatively fair to expect that you use a week of holiday to book it all off.

It would not be unreasonable for you to request that your 3 days from a week don't land on the days you want, so you can have those off without using your holiday. However, when this was planned into the rota, I would expect your manager to try and honour it AFTER other team member holidays had been worked in, and the needs of the business were accommodated. (This means that for instance if there has to be one person "on duty" at all times and the only way that can happen is for you to work on one of the days you wanted to be off, you'd be out of luck.)

Of course the whole thing boils down to your contract, and the type of work you do. But secondary to this, it's all about attitude and communication. If you have a new boss, it might take a while for him/her to get up to speed with all the workings of your role. It takes time to build up a good working relationship, but only one daft action to ruin your chances of ever building one. Choose your battles wisely.