Law Queries: maternity and holidays

Q. Our workplace shuts down for a week over Christmas and we have to take this out of our holiday entitlement. One of our members is on maternity leave until the end of January, but her manager has told her that she still has to take a week's holiday at Christmas and can't take it when she comes back to work. Is this right?

A. The European Court of Justice has recently confirmed that, under EU law, a worker must be able to take her entitlement to paid annual leave at a time other than during her maternity leave. This includes situations where part of the annual leave has to be taken at a particular time that is fixed by a collective agreement. Your member is therefore allowed to take her holiday when she returns to work.

Gomez v Continental Industrias del Caucho [2004] IRLR 407