Gearing up for the Christmas shutdown

Citation

Pitt, M. (2009), "Gearing up for the Christmas shutdown", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 17 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2009.04417eab.001

Gearing up for the Christmas shutdown

Article Type: Employment law outlook From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 17, Issue 5

Employers can insist that their workers take annual leave at certain times of the year – during a Christmas shutdown, for example – but only in certain circumstances.

Ideally, employees’ individual employment contracts should specify the precise dates of any annual shutdown. If they do not, the employer can instruct workers to take statutory annual leave on particular dates only if he or she gives at least twice as much notice of the leave as the length of time the shutdown will last.

This means that, during November, an employer could tell his or her employees that the organization will close for, say, two weeks over Christmas and the New Year. Employees would then have to use up two weeks of their annual holiday entitlement at this time.

The employer should, strictly speaking, be able to show a “legitimate aim” – such as carrying out machine maintenance during the shutdown – for denying the people the right to work.

An enforced Christmas and new-year shutdown could be a bitter pill to swallow even for practising Christians who would prefer to have more holiday “in reserve” for the summer months. For non-Christians, such a shutdown would seem to be even more of an anomaly. A Muslim may strongly prefer to work throughout late December and early January and save extra leave for, say, Eid-al-Adha.

If the employer could not show a legitimate aim for the shutdown, the Muslim worker may be able to claim indirect religious discrimination for being denied the right to work between Christmas and the New Year.

Employers who have, over the years, always insisted that their workers take time off in late December and early January could claim that this is now implied in their contracts. But it is always safer to have a written document to make things certain.

In the UK, all full-time workers have, since 1 April 2009, been entitled to 28 days leave a year. The amount was raised from 24 days, which was the entitlement before 1 October 2007, and the 20-day entitlement that had existed before that. Part-time workers are entitled to the extra holidays on a pro-rata basis.

Put another way, it means that the eight bank holidays that could previously be included in the 20 days of statutory minimum holiday became additional to the 20 statutory minimum days on 1 April.

1 Almost six million workers benefit

The latest law – which the government estimated would benefit 5.9 million workers nationally, and cost UK businesses £4 billion a year – is likely to have a particularly strong impact in industries with a high number of agency workers and other seasonal and hourly-paid employees, who are commonly given only the statutory minimum paid-holiday entitlement.

Many employment contracts already provided workers with at least 28 days of paid holiday when taking into account bank holidays. The 1 April changes did not bind employers who already offered at least this amount of leave, and they do not have to maintain their previous holiday differentials.

But they do have to comply with certain new restrictions on carrying forward holiday and on paying employees in lieu of unused holiday.

Under the latest law, all full-time employees must take four weeks leave in each leave year. Unused additional holiday entitlement can be carried over to the following leave year – but only if the employer and worker agree. From 1 April 2009, no payment in lieu of the 28-day statutory-holiday entitlement has been allowed, except to an employee who leaves the firm.

As the law changes employment terms to benefit employees, employers do not need to reissue their employment contracts. They should, though, have informed staff in writing of the increased holiday entitlement, either through a letter to staff or by a statement on pay slips, for example.

Mike PittEmployment-law partner at Greater Manchester solicitor Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law. He can be contacted by e-mailing michael.pitt@pearson-hinchlif.co.uk, or telephoning +44 (0)161-785 3500.