Employment Law Watch : Employment & Labor Lawyer & Attorney : Reed Smith Law Firm

The subject of leave and pay has caused a number of headaches for employers over recent years. Recent cases have sought to clarify this area of the law, however, many questions remain unanswered. One of the most confusing areas relating to leave is the interaction between sick leave and annual leave. What happens when a worker is off sick and therefore does not take his/her accrued holiday? Do workers accrue annual leave whilst off sick? Read on for a summary of the recent cases which have sought to answer some of these questions.

Accrual of annual leave during sick leave

In Stringer and Others v HM Revenue & Customs, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held, in respect of questions refered to it by the House of Lords, now the Supreme Court (HL), that:

• workers on sick leave must continue to accrue annual leave;
• it is for Member States to decide whether workers can actually take annual leave during sick leave; and
• if workers are prevented from taking annual leave during sick leave, they must be able to take it following their return to work, even if this means carrying the annual leave over into the next holiday year.

The HL has now determined how these principles should be applied in the UK. Regulation 13(9) of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) states that “leave.... may only be taken in the leave year in respect of which it is due”. The parties agreed that statutory annual leave could not therefore be carried forward to the next holiday year. The HL held that it was therefore necessary to interpret the WTR as allowing workers on long-term sick leave to take (and be paid for) annual leave whilst on sick leave.

However, this case raises as many questions as it answers. For example, what happens if the worker does not request annual leave whilst on sick leave? Does the employer have to permit annual leave to be carried forward in these circumstances, despite the WTR? Many of the points raised by the ECJ were not fully considered by the HL, and therefore the manner in which the ECJ’s decision might be interpreted under UK law remains uncertain.

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In Pereda v Madrid Movilidad SA, the European Court of Justice ("ECJ") has decided that where a worker is sick during a period of pre-planned annual leave, annual leave must be granted to him for a different period and if he is prevented from taking it during the current holiday year, he can carry it forward to the next one. This judgment follows on from the recent and highly publicised conjoined cases of Schultz-Hoff and Stringer, which established that a worker on sick leave accrues annual leave whilst off sick but it is for Member States to decide whether a worker can take their annual leave during a period of sick leave. The upshot of these decisions appears to be that employees can choose to do what suits them best – if on long term sick leave, they can elect to take paid annual leave, but if they are sick whilst on paid annual leave, they can elect to postpone paid annual leave and take it later even if that means having to postpone it to the next holiday year. Pereda represents a very worrying development for employers as it opens the door to abuse because unscrupulous employees will be able to re-classify parts of their holiday as sick leave on their word alone.

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The House of Lords, in the case of HM Revenue and Customs v Stringer and others has overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal in that case, ruling that claims for unpaid statutory holiday pay and accrued statutory holiday pay on termination under the Working Time Regulations 1998 (“WTRegs”) can be made as unlawful deduction from wages under the Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA”), as well as under the WTRegs. This will mean that workers can take advantage of the more favourable time limits which apply under the ERA, which could potentially allow them to claim unpaid holiday pay on termination of their employment going back several years, provided they bring their holiday pay claim within three months of their employer’s most recent failure to pay them holiday pay. This decision will not be welcomed by employers as it will increase the cost of both continuing to employ workers on long term sick leave, and also on termination of their employment. It also leaves unresolved a number of practical problems arising from the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) earlier this year on this issue (see our blog for details of the ECJ decision). 

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The European Court of Justice has ruled that workers on long term sick leave will not lose their right to holiday pay where they have been unable to take the holiday by virtue of being on sick leave. This decision is very unwelcome to employers as it will increase the cost of both continuing to employ workers on long term sick leave, and also on termination of their employment. Read on to see what we think this means for employers in practice.

Gerhard Schultz-Hoff (C-350/06) v Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund, and Mrs C. Stringer and Others (C-520/06) v Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

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The UK’s ability to opt out of the 48 hour working week is now in peril following the European Parliament vote this week to have it scrapped. The UK’s opt out of this element of the Working Time Directive (in other words employees in the UK being able to agree to opt out of the limit) was agreed in the 1990s but has been under threat now for a number of years. The vote will come as a great disappointment to UK businesses bearing in mind that earlier this year the UK agreed to the Temporary Agency Directive provided it could keep the Working Time Directive opt out. Keeping the opt out was, however, dependent on being accompanied by a number of conditions which guarantee the protection of health and safety of workers. The European Parliament was not convinced that keeping the opt out does not undermine health and safety. 

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