timmy2take

iTrader: (7)

Basically we work an average of 46 hours a week. Sometimes just 40 then the next week can be 64, then 60. the clever bods have worked out the 46hours.

Annual leave used to be taken as 46hours a week divided by 7 days. Which was 5.25 day hours and 1.25 night hours. (Not even sure thats right) but around that figure. (If we wanted a week off it was 46hours)


Now we are being told if we want a week off we have to take the hours you are rota'd down for.
So you may be lucky and take a 40hour week off. But if you have to take a week off on your 64 hours it takes a large percentage.

Another main point is if say you had to take off the 24hour days out of the 257 hours we get annual leave it was something like only 10.7 days off a year

Is this legal?
Also no contract has been signed, as I believe my previous contract had the old annual leave entitlement on it. (I will dig it out) The entitlement hours haven't changed, but the way we take them have.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

We have holiday hours rather than days, so most of us take our short week off but unless your in a union you may be screwed

Tony

Dr.No

To be honest, the new method seems perfectly fair - fairer than your previous method anyway.

If I worked somewhere that operated on a similar basis, but had my holidays in days I wouldn't expect to be able to book "a week" irrespective of the days worked. (ie. if the working pattern was 3 days one week, 5 days the next, etc. - and had 20 days holiday a year - I wouldn't expect to be able to take "a week" by only using 4 days holiday (4 being the average).

As Tony says, I'd actually take the weeks off that were shorter, if I could, and get a week by taking 3 days off.

Seems perfectly fair and logical if you ask me...

timmy2take

iTrader: (7)

10.7 days does?
Sometimes it may not be possible to take it on shorter weeks, and being on a rota, never knowing that you ever get a fixed day off I.e. always a Sunday it'll be inevitable that we have to take off 24hour days for say a party/funeral.
1 day off is about 10% of my annual leave.

Clarebabes

Work 64 hours a week? I'd get another job, that's unbelievable in this day and age, isn't it? I hope you've opted out of the working time directive....

Dazza9t9

iTrader: (2)

I work shifts and the pattern changes from week to week. Our annual leave is by the hour and its exactly the same, if I take a week off in a short week then lucky me, if not then its just hard luck.

That said my shift pattern does not differ from 40 to 64hrs per week. That is a massive difference

paulr

You are entitled by law to a minimum of 5.6 weeks annual leave. If you work mon-fri that means you need to take off 28 days to achieve that. I work 4 on-40 off shifts. To give me 5.6 weeks off i need to take 20 days.

pslewis

Become a Teacher!!

26 Hours a week directed time and 14 weeks off (70 days!) + Bank Holidays ..... what a life!

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Seems like a bit of a nonsensical approach from the bosses, if you ask me, for two reasons. First, a lot of people like or need to book their holiday time months in advance, so are they honestly saying that the work rotas are worked out that far ahead? Second, since they know everyone's entitled to the same 5.6 weeks annual leave, why don't they just work out the total hours and rotas for the weeks you actually work on the basis of a 46.4 week year, instead of a 52 week year? That way it makes no difference at all when you or anyone else takes the time off, everyone still ends up working the same proportion of longer or shorter hour weeks.

Sounds like they have a major lack of creative thinking in the manager's office.

timmy2take

iTrader: (7)

Sorry, but I don't really understand the 46.4 week year thing? Sorry

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

It's the European working time directive. Everyone in a full-time permanent job is entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday a year, so that means out of each complete 52 weeks in the year, you'll only ever work 46.4 of them. So, your bosses are trying to say that your time off has to be worked out on how many hours away from work you'll be taking, not just the amount of days or weeks, because some of the weeks you might be asked to work longer hours and some of them shorter, when you take you 5.6 weeks holiday it might have to be shorter than 5.6 actual weeks (or it could be longer).

The bottom line is they're talking utter bo!!ocks. What they should be doing is cutting off the 5.6 weeks from your full working year and setting it aside completely, then working out the hours of your rotas for each week you work based on what's left (which is where the 46.4 weeks comes in). That way they can't say, "oh, if you take that week off in May, you would have been doing 60 hours, so that really counts as one week and 2 days of your holiday", because your holiday time should never have been included in the rota to begin with.

You asked in your first post if what they're doing is illegal, and the answer to that is it probably is. The only thing that isn't certain is whether they're doing it deliberately to try and pull a fast one, or whether they're just too short of grey matter to figure out the way they should be doing it.

mart360

I get 27 days, excluding statutory holidays, we can take them as hours or days.

8hrs is the day rate

Mart

WhatswiththeR

iTrader: (1)

Where I work we get 27 days a year, +1 for more then 10 years service and +1 if your a first aider. We are meant to be working a 35 hour week, but sometimes that can be as much as 52 hours or as little as 26. Our annual leave is worked out at 1.5 days a month iirc, what most people tend to do is book off either side of nights (when we have 6 rest days) so we get like 12 days for only taking 7 A/L days. Also what our union is fighting for is that our annual leave is based on Monday-Saturday, and the management have decided to include Sundays as A/L days (we used to get 5 Sundays a year off not part of A/L).

SpecDscooby

Indeed it is he EU working time directive.....dont know how much help this is but.....:

You CANNOT be forced to work more than a 48hr p/week average. If you work more than a 48hr week you must work less hours in the comming weeks to counter act it....normally the working week is averaged over either a 17 week reference period or 36 week. That is down to your employers. So basically you must work not more than 48hr per week average over that 17 or 36 week period. I use this a lot in logistics and it is a mine field. Your employers are doing nothing that they cannot do. But perhaps worth reading you rota to ensure you meet EU regs, or your employer is on a sticky wicket hrs wise, unless of course you have signed an opt out agreement>>??...:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employme...ff/DG_10029426

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Right, but they can't make youtake it all as hours, and then say you're only allowed 22 days or whatever because you would have worked 10 hour days all of that time. If you want your 27 days, you can have 27 days, no matter what.

Dr.No

LOL - you can't present one side of the argument without looking at the other.

Yes, 10.7 days sounds reasonable if you pick the "expensive" weeks to have off. On the flip side, if you use your 257 hours on the 40 hour weeks then you'd get nearly 6.5 weeks of holiday.

My guess is that some of your colleagues may well take advantage of this fact, and would go out of their way to always take the 40 hour weeks off on holiday - Does that sound fair?

Obviously the other side of this is if you DID pick the "expensive" weeks to take off, then you have less hours left to actually work. Similarly, if your colleague chose to take all of their holidays during 40hr weeks then they'd be left working proportionally more 64 hour weeks, etc.

Swings and roundabouts really - but the 'hours' system does sound the fairest.