Corbyn wants FOUR extra bank holidays

[Rowls]

There seems to be an awful lot of misinformation being posted on this thread (Rowls, for instance - in his customary style - is happy to bold his ignorance), so just to be clear, here's the law (unions can occasionally be useful, you know):

https://worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/ho ... can-i-take" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So yes, your employer can insist you work a bank holiday, but you are entitled to another day off if they do. You are also able to voluntarily work bank holidays in exchange for holidays at a time of your choosing, if your employer agrees to this. So absolutely nobody will find they have either less paid holiday, or less flexibility as to when they take their holiday than they do now. It really is just an extra 4 days off - paid. (There might be issues for those on zero-hour contracts, but Labour are committed to removing these anyway.)

Hahahahaha.

Please get in touch with my old employer and tell him he owes me a day's pay (as well as for everyone else he employed) for the additional bank holiday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

His details:

Patrick Carroll
Cripps Dental Centre
Univeristy of Nottingham
NG7 2RD

Once he's given you my day's pay you can have 50% as a reward.*

I'm sure he'll pay up willingly and without any questions. He's such a reasonable, nice and understanding fellow - which is why he decided to allow us to all enjoy the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday by insisting we come to work in the first place.

* Just don't expect a lot of money.

[If it be your will]

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[IanMcL]

4 Bank Hols sounds good to me. Except the roads will all be full!

[Rowls]

Labour disputes are ideally best left to your union representative. Were you in a union at the time (anyone can join one, and this sort of of thing is exactly what your fees are for)? Flouting labour laws is a serious offence, so the other alternative would be a no win-no fee solicitor. It's up to all of us to stand up to workplace tyranny whenever we see it, using the laws we have all fought for over the last 100 years.

You can also highlight you allegation here:

http://www.nhs.uk/Services/dentists/Rev ... x?id=23685" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is something the General Dental Council would take very seriously, should you wish to make a formal complaint. So there are lots of options available, only one of which is to lie down and accept the abusive (and illegal) labour practices you describe.

I don't like working for arseholes and Patrick Carroll was, in my opinion, an utter arsehole. So I left. I didn't have any spare money for a union subscription back then. If you live or have ever lived close enough to the breadline you'll maybe understand but £10/month can be a lot of money and when you're confident in your ability to find work and look after yourself you really have to think hard about paying £10.

I asked myself if it was worth it and I told myself it wasn't. I determined that if the time ever came when I felt mistreated there I'd simply up sticks and leave and take my labour elsewhere. So that's exactly what I did.

I had "no-win no-fee" solicitors prepared to represent me on a different matter against Patrick Carroll but I chose not to go down that route. Any "victory" I won would by Pyrrhic and there is never a guarantee of winning, even with the best of cases. Having "no win no fee" solicitors prepared to represent you shows how strong your case is but it's not the only thing you have to consider. You'd endanger your own future employment prospects, endanger the employment of every single one of your work colleagues and the rewards of "winning" would be infinitesimal to nil.

In the end I was rather lucky - I drew his name (without any help from colleagues, natch) in the 'Secret Santa' and bought him a DVD (Region 1 so he couldn't play it) of Scrooged. I handed my notice in on Christmas Eve.

If you think all our labour laws can be implemented exactly how they were envisaged you're living in cloud cuckoo land. If you think businesses won't find ways of clawing back four mandatory holidays from their expenses column then good luck to you. If Jeremy Corbyn becomes PM and implements this then everybody out there in a middle class job will get their four days off. The only ones who will be taken for a ride will be the little people with tiny pay packets like I was back then.

It'll be the part-time workers, the shelf stackers, the till operators, the cleaners, the bar staff, the waiters and waitresses. Vote for Jeremy Corbyn if you must but it's these kind of workers who'll be bearing the brunt of the business backlash against the four extra holidays.

Getting back to workplace relations in general - The only way to ensure good workplace relations is to work somewhere where there aren't any areseholes. This is very, very difficult. Shoddy bosses find loopholes in the law, shoddy employees find loopholes in the rights legislation. I've known both.

As far as I'm aware the GDC (as they were, if I remember they've been replaced by another organisation - NHS England?) would not take it at all (seriously or otherwise) because they only deal with the clinical side of his business.

They actually closed the practice down for a week because Patrick Carroll had not installed a proper decontamination / sterilisation room (he relied instead on old fashioned machines in the individual surgeries). We were instructed to inform the patients that the practice was "undergoing renovation" which was, strictly speaking, not a lie but it was hardly the whole truth either. The practice had been informed they should have installed this kind of decontamination procedure much earlier and the word among us staff was that he had been too tight to do this. It was widely believed he was hoping for some kind of grant or government help for bringing his privately owned practice up to scratch. He has a reputation as a legendary tightwad amongst his staff. Particularly given how spectacularly rich we all assumed he is.

As far as I know the practice adheres to all the necessary clinical standards these days although I do have to say that I found the admin procedures to be shoddy and amateur. The data was stored in old-fashioned paper files and whilst I was there he resisted all the numerous pleas to modernise the practice and bring in computers.

Anyway, I'm meandering. The point is, the GDC deal with clinical matters. Not business affairs. They would have referred me, or anyone else, to ACAS and business tribunals.

All of my old work colleagues depend upon the business for their wages. I'm not about to start anything which could endanger their livelihoods. There are many excellent dentists who work at the practice, regardless of how shoddily I was treated as an employee there or however much of an miserable arse or tightwad Patrick Carroll may allegedly be.

[Lancasterclaret]

This is a a bloke who lived on the breadline, getting shafted by Tory employment law and STILL VOTES TORY.

And he has the gall to criticise people who vote Labour regardless (who are just as bad of course!)

[If it be your will]

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[whiffa]

What many seem to fail to realise is that Bank Holidays are deducted from Statutory Holiday entitlement anyway so you'd probably not actually gain any holiday if your boss is like mine. I get 20 days holiday a year, 8 less than the 28 minimum for working a 5day week because 8 days are bank holidays and can be deducted. (AFAIK could be wrong) 10 bank holidays would result in 18 days holiday a year so I'd actually not be getting any extra time off.

Nothing but political propaganda aimed to get this sort of conversation going where in reality it'd make no difference.

[Manceau]

Not if the Statutory Holiday entitlement is increased by 4 days to make it 32 rather than 28. Presumably that would be the mechanism used rather than to just take holidays out of existing entitlements.

[Rowls]

This is a a bloke who lived on the breadline, getting shafted by Tory employment law and STILL VOTES TORY.
And he has the gall to criticise people who vote Labour regardless (who are just as bad of course!)

Not "shafted by employment laws" - shafted by an employer.

[If it be your will]

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[dsr]

If your boss is doing that you should contact your union. If you are not in a union I urge you to join one. What he is doing is illegal. Four extra bank holidays does actually mean four more paid holidays, whether you actually take them on a bank holiday or not.

The law couldn't be any clearer:

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement- ... ntitlement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

See also post 91.

If the four extra days' holiday were to be brought in, no doubt the law would be changed to make 32 minimum days for a 5-day-a-week worker. But as it stands, it's 28, so if the normal holiday allowance is 20 free days + 8 bank holidays, and a Queen's Jubilee bank holiday is introduced, then the employer can legally give 19 free + 9 bank if he so wishes. And doesn't mind being unpopular.

[Edit- which is pretty much what whiffa said.]

[Rowls]

It is interesting to hear is that, Rowls. You've been there, several times by the sounds of it. Imagine if you were in the same circumstances with a family to feed. Yet it sometimes appears (wrongly?) as though you hold nothing but contempt for anyone else in these circumstances, or for anyone that advocates strengthening, or at least preserving, workers' rights. At least when you were there you had the law on your side, give it 5 years of May - outside the EU's protections - and it's likely you won't even have that.

Yes it would be wrong to assume any level of contempt for people in similar circumstances. Don't you see that "at least having the law on my side" meant absolutely nothing?

What would I have done had I a family to feed? I'd have done the same however if I had a family to feed I hope I'd have had the responsibility to have worked myself into a better position prior to that. There's a lot to be said for stepping up to your responsibilities in life.

This is actually what Margaret Thatcher meant when she said there are "only families and individuals". As an individual my primary responsibility was ensuring my own welfare and not having to rely on others. I did that.

As for advocating workers rights there are balances to be struck. We need to balance rights with responsibilities and you need to be aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Take the guff Miliband went on about last election about zero hour contracts. The Conservatives made exclusivity illegal - rightfully so. Miliband's zero hours policy won zero votes. It meant zero.

Corbyn wants to expand it! He wants to ban zero hours contracts.

Where's the work going to go? It isn't going to go anywhere. Companies and workers who take advantage of what is essentially a method of variable shift patterns not a million miles too dissimilar from flexi-time would be made illegal. The work would still need to be done, so what would happen?

My guess is that the companies employing workers on zero hours contracts would force their workers to become self-employed and hire them back on private contracts. The only thing I imagine a ban on zero hours contracts will achieve is a slight reduction in tax receipts (as a result of fatuous 'self-employment') and an big increase in paperwork and forms for HMRC.

How would any of what Corbyn is proposing have helped me?

[whiffa]

If your boss is doing that you should contact your union. If you are not in a union I urge you to join one. What he is doing is illegal. Four extra bank holidays does actually mean four more paid holidays, whether you actually take them on a bank holiday or not.

The law couldn't be any clearer:

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement- ... ntitlement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

See also post 91.

A quote from your link states:

"Bank holidays

Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave.

An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave."

I get paid for my Bank Holidays but they are deducted from the 28days. I get 20days holiday plus 8days Bank Holiday, paid.

Therefore if four extra bank holidays are introduced it would likely change to 16days holiday plus 12 Bank Holiday, paid.

Am I wrong? It makes no difference I'd still only get paid 28days holiday, not 4 extra. Providing they're included in your Statutory Entitlement.

[Manceau]

No, your statutory entitlement would increase to 32 days.

So, you would have 20 days plus 12 bank holidays paid. An extra 4 days.

[whiffa]

Where does it say that the Statutory Entitlement would increase? Thanks if that's the case.

[Manceau]

It's not written anywhere yet, presumably it will be a part of the manifesto and we'll all be able to see. However, if the entitlement doesn't rise it would defeat the purpose somewhat and (rightly) make Labour vulnerable to arguments about telling people when they can and can't have their days off and would be more alienating than uniting.

Also, the days he's proposing are patron saint days, which can fall any day of the week, so if the entitlement wasn't to rise it could in effect be a reduction in total days off if a couple of the days fell on a weekend.

[nil_desperandum]

Also, the days he's proposing are patron saint days, which can fall any day of the week, so if the entitlement wasn't to rise it could in effect be a reduction in total days off if a couple of the days fell on a weekend.

Bank Holidays frequently fall on weekends, and are always moved to Mondays. The last Christmas and New Year's Days being cases in point.

[boatshed bill]

Not only Corbyn, I'd like them too.