Forced to take holidays from next yrs leave?

hi,

I work in the private sector, i am a full time employee and i get 20 days annual leave per year, from January to December. Last year (2009), I had booked and used all of my annual leave. On 23 December 2009, I could not make it in to work due to the severe bad weather as the road conditions were to bad.

On my return to work the next day, i was informed that i had to take this time from my 2010 annual leave year as I had no annual leave remaining for 2009. I did not want to do this as I wanted to keep my 20 days annual leave for 2010, but i was told i had no other option, they refused to allow me to take the day as unpaid leave.

If an employee has used all of their leave for the current leave year, it does not sound right to me that they can say you have to take it from next yrs leave? ...can someone clarify if the company are allowed to do this?

Thanks.

Unpaid leave would probably have to be agreed in advance. I can understand from the companies point of view that staff cannot just not show up from work and request an unpaid day. In addition the payroll would have been processed and it would just be a bit of unncessary admin to make adjustments based on an unplanned day of unpaid leave.

If you still want 20 days off in 2010 and you were willing to take an unpaid day in 2009 then you can just request to take some unpaid leave in 2010 and then you'll still have 20 days in 2010.

On the other hand if you couldn't get in due to theh weather (and it was bad) I am surprised the company are a bit strict. Did you ring in on the morning you couldn't make it in? Could you not genuinely make it in?

it was during the severe weather that we had, really could not make it in and i am not one for taking time off like that, i have a good attendance record and no sick days.

i do not see how payroll would be affected as this pay period would not have been processed yet? our company has a policy of not allowing unpaid leave...but in this situation, it seems a bit rough, given that my annual leave is gone?

it was only one day that i could not make it in, and i rang them early to let them know.

Your employer should not have forced you to take paid leave. That should be agreed between both of you in advance.

Purple said:

Your employer should not have forced you to take paid leave. That should be agreed between both of you in advance.

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If someone doesn't show up for work then the easiest thing is to take it off the annual leave allowance.

aristotle said:

If someone doesn't show up for work then the easiest thing is to take it off the annual leave allowance.

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I'd say the opposite, the easiest option for me would be to deduct the days pay (but we have the a good payroll system known as PPARS ).

Say someone was on a fixed term contract and had all their annual leave used up you wouldn't have the option of taking from next years allowance.

I worked during all that bad weather and out of nearly 80 staff in our area, 79 showed up for work. because of the weather we had to work through the weekend too.

Only one couldn't make it (lived in same estate as many other staff)

He had to take leave.

We are all public servants BTW

In our office, all of us skidded it but we all lived locally. I had my heart in my mouth for the week.

There were two people in the office nearby who didn't make it in but they did live 20 miles away, I know I wouldn't have been able to drive 20 miles on compacted ice.

aristotle said:

If someone doesn't show up for work then the easiest thing is to take it off the annual leave allowance.

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It's not about doing what's easiest, it's about doing what is right and being fair to your enployees, treating them with respect.

How bad was the weather in the run up to Christmas last year? I don't remember it being particularly bad (in Dublin). In my view the employee should have been offered the choice between unpaid leave or using one of his/her 2010 holidays. Personally I'd prefer the latter.

Was it not an option to work late/ lunches for a few weeks and bring up the missed 8 hours or so?