Dismissed from work and holiday deducted.

b.e.s.s.

Dear all,

My friend was employed in May 2018 by a Dublin based cleaning company which was taken over by another company in November 2019. It was a full time permanent job and her contract was transferred without ceasing the employment.

3 months after the transfer she was let go giving the reason that the person who she was covering was due to return to work after sickness.
Company offered her few places outside Dublin area which she had no choice but to refuse as she is based in Dublin and has no means to travel to Limerik or Cork.

Nevertheless, in January 2020 she had to take 5 days off as paid holiday. Then In the beginning of February 2020 she worked her final week and was expecting to get paid in full for that week but got paid €70 instead. The deduction was for €400 for holiday as stated in the payslip.

Could someone guide me in this matter as I'm not sure whether it was correctly calculated.

Thank you in advance.

Dav010

Annual leave is accrued each year based on time worked. Statutory leave for someone working 5 days per week, is 20 days. So to have accrued 5 annual leave days, you would have to work for approximately 3 months. If your friend took 5 days in January, she took more annual leave then she was entitled to so the extra days can be deducted from final payslip.

The bigger issue for her would be the potentially unfair dismissal, if she was working there over a year, she would be protected by the Unfair Dismissals Act.

whomitconcerns

b.e.s.s. wrote: »

Dear all,

My friend was employed in May 2018 by a Dublin based cleaning company which was taken over by another company in November 2019. It was a full time permanent job and her contract was transferred without ceasing the employment.

3 months after the transfer she was let go giving the reason that the person who she was covering was due to return to work after sickness.
Company offered her few places outside Dublin area which she had no choice but to refuse as she is based in Dublin and has no means to travel to Limerik or Cork.

Nevertheless, in January 2020 she had to take 5 days off as paid holiday. Then In the beginning of February 2020 she worked her final week and was expecting to get paid in full for that week but got paid €70 instead. The deduction was for €400 for holiday as stated in the payslip.

Could someone guide me in this matter as I'm not sure whether it was correctly calculated.

Thank you in advance.

She would have accrued only 1.66 days holiday, so if 400 equates to 3.33 days pay them that's correct. (You say she took 5 days, therefore she owed them 3.33)

Did she carry over any AL from last year OP or was she starting with 0 days on Jan 1st this year?

Considering she was full-time permanent as opposed to temporary covering maternity leave etc, this reeks of the employer avoiding statutory redundancy- while we don't have enough info, an unfair dismissal claim could have a reasonable chance of success.

shamrockvilla

Find out what months her annual leave is calculated from. Not all jobs are calculated from January to January.

b.e.s.s.

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

To make things clearer.
According to the letter received from the company, her holidays were calculated from 27/12/19 to 04/01/20. However, I'm unsure if 1st January should be calculated as a working day.
Also, how to assess the fact that they knew she is to be dismissed on the 10th of February 2020, yet she still got paid for holidays without notifying of the upcoming deduction. Is this a matter to consider at all?

As per unfair dismissal. This fact has a separate set of complications like the fact of the contract transfer and the reason for the dismissal as it is (covering sick leave) while she had full time contract.
Please bare in mind that while she was offered positions in places like Cork and Limerik she could not accept those by default. This makes me think that the offered was a matter of ticking the box for the company. Not sure if it is relevant.

She is a good friend of mine and I know her as a hard, reliable worker and a decent person who will under no circumstances will miss a day at work or take advantage of others.
The company was going through several redundancies at the time and I believe was eager to solve everything rather quickly. Therefore she received a letter confirming her employment from the date of transfer and not from the contract date. This was confirmed as an error by the company's hr who issued a second letter stating correct dates yet still insisted that she was employed for the purpose of covering the sick leave which was not the case.

Dav010

b.e.s.s. wrote: »

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

To make things clearer.
According to the letter received from the company, her holidays were calculated from 27/12/19 to 04/01/20. However, I'm unsure if 1st January should be calculated as a working day.
Also, how to assess the fact that they knew she is to be dismissed on the 10th of February 2020, yet she still got paid for holidays without notifying of the upcoming deduction. Is this a matter to consider at all?

As per unfair dismissal. This fact has a separate set of complications like the fact of the contract transfer and the reason for the dismissal as it is (covering sick leave) while she had full time contract.
Please bare in mind that while she was offered positions in places like Cork and Limerik she could not accept those by default. This makes me think that the offered was a matter of ticking the box for the company. Not sure if it is relevant.

She is a good friend of mine and I know her as a hard, reliable worker and a decent person who will under no circumstances will miss a day at work or take advantage of others.
The company was going through several redundancies at the time and I believe was eager to solve everything rather quickly. Therefore she received a letter confirming her employment from the date of transfer and not from the contract date. This was confirmed as an error by the company's hr who issued a second letter stating correct dates yet still insisted that she was employed for the purpose of covering the sick leave which was not the case.

27/30/31/2/3 is 5 days.

Company transfer would have been under TUPE legislation, in other words she would retain all her rights and duration of service from when she started with previous owner.

Your friend should go to Citizens Advice to be informed of her rights.

@ OP- the key question re: holiday pay, is- Are her holidays calculated Jan-Dec, or maybe September to August? Different companies have different end of years- it's not always Jan-Dec.

to make things easier- when she took annual leave in January this year, did she have any holidays worked up?
e.g. 20 days AL per year means an entitlement of 1.66 days per month. Usually, you'll take AL towards the summer period, so at that stage you'll have say just under 10 days saved for AL, if you take in June.
But if you have no days worked up and none carried over from the previous year, and then if you're "dismissed" at the start of the year, having taken AL days, then yes, you may owe those days back to the company- in this case about 3 or so days- but the company in my view, are being absolute ****'s about this.

The bigger issue is, did they dismiss her in the right way, according to law- IMHO, they didn't- 3 more months and she would have been entitled to statutory redundancy. It reeks of sharp practice - consult free legal for further advice- it all rests with the contract she was on.

Mrs OBumble

How much annual leave did she take between May 18 and December 2019?


Also, are you certain she was actually permanent- did her documents actually say that it was contract of indefinite duration? Some people see "full time" and assume it means permanent, when its totally different.