Holiday rights, employment law.

[AlbertoFiz]

I work for a small private company and my employer is trying to make us work all through summer and wait until September before we start taking leave. I am sure this is not legal as do my colleagues but dont know where to go for help. Any suggestions or help from anyone who knows about employment law would be greatly appreciated.

[AlbertoFiz]

I should have also stated that we work 12 days on then 2 off all year (including Christmas and New year) and have already agreed not to take holidays between November and the end of May.

[AlbertoFiz]

PPS
We will have to take all our leave in June, September and October.

[stonekicker]

are your bosses a bit dim then? surely if all their employees take annual leave in these three months, there wouldn't be anyone left to run the company!!! as far as i am aware, you are entitled to take your leave whenever you like. where i work, the only stipulation is that a maximum of 4 people are off at any one time (out of a team of 25) or you need to discuss things with the manager, who will do his best to accommodate our needs outside of this. at the end of the day, how can they stipulate how you spend your spare time? there has to be some kind of legal support for you here, but i am afraid i don't know for sure. good luck!

[stonekicker]

depressingly, i googled this:

www.workingfamilies.org.uk/asp/family_zone/factsheets/time_off.doc

how can this be right? it sucks!!!

[stonekicker]

also this from the acas website - still depressing!

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=80 6

[AlbertoFiz]

When I say small company I mean 5 including the boss. Have been reading up on holiday entitelment via a link in another question in the AB but am still confused about our rights.

[TEAK36]

I am fairly sure your employers can dictate when you take your holidays. Some small firms even close for a couple of weeks so that all employees take 2 weeks leave at the same time. It does indeed suck, but that's life.

[sammy snake]

TEAK36 is correct, as long as you actually get the holidays that you are entitled to, your employer is within their rights to dictate when you take them.

[Skyline D]

Indeed, that is why the "trades" holidays traditionally exist (they do in Scotland anyway) where the whole of th ebuilding trade (builders, joiners, plumbers, etc) all take the same two weeks in July every year which minimises the disruption to building work the rest of the year which could be the case if different tradesmen are required on site at the same time but have different holidays.

It's not that unusual for workers in certain sectors to have their holidays dictated to them. Another very obvious one is teachers who, whilst they have a fairly large window to take holidays in, still can't just take a fortnight off during term time.

[buildersmate]

Most of the situations above relate to where an employer has an arrangement that everyone takes leave together and the place closes.
This example seems to be that no-one takes leave during a declared time slot together (the summer) but that employees can book holiday when they like apart from that (subject to not everyone together).
Is this custom and practice in the business? - did it happen last year?
Is there anything written down (Company Handbook? - if such a thing exists)
Had you put a holiday request in a while ago and you are now being denied it?
Depending on the above, you may be on strong grounds, but your remedies are still probably depressingly limited. E.g.: -
You could threaten to resign, claiming constructive dismissal, in an attempt to get your way.
You could insist you are taking it anyway and see if the employer tries to dismiss you - then try and claim unfair dismissal at an ET.