The bank holiday weekend is fast approaching. However, not everyone will be lucky enough to have an extra day off this June.
Thousands of workers will still be heading into their jobs this Monday, but did you know your employer may have to compensate you in some way.
Most employees are entitled to paid leave on public holidays, although there is an exception for certain part-time employees.
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If you qualify for public holiday benefit, you are entitled to one of the following:
- A paid day off on the public holiday
- An additional day of annual leave
- An additional day's pay
- A paid day off within a month of the public holiday
You can ask your employer at least 21 days before a public holiday which of the alternatives will apply.
If your employer does not respond at least 14 days before the public holiday, you are entitled to take the actual public holiday as a paid day off.
Your public holiday entitlements are set out in the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, and you can also read about the appropriate rate of daily pay in the Organisation of Working Time (Determination of Pay For Holidays) Regulations (SI 475/1997).
Part-time employees
Things are a little different for part-time employees.
If you work part-time, you are entitled to a day's pay for the public holiday if you meet both these conditions:
- You have worked for your employer for at least 40 hours in the five weeks before the public holiday
- The public holiday falls on a day you normally work
You can count time spent on annual leave as 'time worked' when calculating the 40 hours worked in the five weeks before the public holiday.
If you are required to work that day, you are entitled to an additional day's pay.
If you do not usually work on that particular day, you should get one-fifth of your weekly pay.
Even if you are never rostered to work on a public holiday, you are entitled to one-fifth of your weekly pay as compensation for the public holiday.
When public holidays fall on a weekend
If the public holiday falls on a day which is not a normal working day for that business (for example, on Saturday or Sunday), you are still entitled to benefit from that public holiday.
However, you do not have any automatic legal entitlement to have the next working day off work.
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