A recent case heard in the Court of Appeal has rejected an Employers Appeal that they did not underpay a part time, term- time worker in respect of their holiday pay.
In Brazel v The Harpur Trust, the Court of Appeal found in favour of the Employee. The original case saw Brazel challenge the way their employer had calculated their holiday pay, which had resulted in an underpayment. Brazel was a term time worker
and worked part time hours and his employer calculated his holiday pay using the method of 12.07% of hours worked during the previous term (a calculation which is regularly used for workers who do not work the same hours and which equates to the statutory 5.6 weeks holiday entitlement).
However, the court ruled that the Working Time Regulations and the Employment Rights Act required the employer to calculate a ‘weeks pay’ based on an average earned over a 12 week period and based on this equation, Brazel’s holiday entitlement worked out at 17.5%.The Employer cannot discard this method and use their own.
This is a useful case for all businesses who work based on term time contracts. If you would like any further advice on this subject or any other HR matter, please give our HR Consultancy Team a call on 01302 341 344.
By Jodi Cooling MBA Dip CII – Group Operations Director and HR Consultant