You’ve no right to have it off!

Royal wedding day warning to workers 
HUNDREDS of Oldhamers planning to celebrate the Royal Wedding in style may yet find that they have to go to work on the big day.

The Government has declared April 29 a bank holiday, but Mike Pitt, employment-law partner at Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law, Hollinwood, warns this doesn’t automatically mean entitlement to the day off.

“Just because someone is contractually entitled to the extra day’s holiday doesn’t mean he or she can spend April 29 somewhere other than work,” Mr Pitt explains.

“Contrary to popular opinion, workers are not automatically entitled to take bank and public holidays as leave on the actual day — many workers, particularly those employed in retail and factories, go into work on these holidays, taking the time off at another point in the leave year.

“Although the Government amended the Working Time Regulations in 2007 to increase the statutory minimum annual leave entitlement to incorporate bank and public holidays, it did not introduce a free-standing right to take leave on those days.

“Workers not contractually entitled to take leave on bank or public holidays must, if they wish to take April 29 off, make a holiday request in the normal way. And their employer will be entitled to refuse such a request.”

Even so, Mr Pitt advises employers to think carefully before turning them down. In some firms, the right to take public holidays may arise as a matter of custom and practice in the business.

In others, the employer may decide to grant the additional holiday as a gesture of good will — particularly if the firm has not been able to afford a pay rise this year.

On the question of pay, Mr Pitt advises: “People who work on the Royal Wedding day should receive the company’s normal rates for a bank holiday. There is no statutory entitlement to extra pay on a bank holiday — but check what your contracts say.” 

* Employers be warned — there is another extra bank holiday in June, 2012, as part of a special four-day Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend.

This will involve putting back the late May Bank Holiday to Monday, June 4, and adding an additional Jubilee bank holiday on Tuesday, June 5.