Holidays count in strike deductions

Employers who deduct wages from workers taking part in industrial action must include annual leave and bank holidays as working days when calculating a day’s pay.

The High Court ruling came in a case brought by public services union UNISON on behalf of support staff at Isle of Wight College, who held a one-day strike in 2006 to oppose pension cuts.

The college deducted 1/228th of their annual salary — a figure based on the number of days they actually worked each year (that is, excluding annual leave and bank holidays). It argued that its loss from the strike was greater than the wages that would have been paid for that day, and included the holiday entitlement that arose as a result of the work that the striking workers did not do.

But the High Court confirmed that UNISON was right to argue that the correct deduction rate was 1/260th of their pay. This figure, which excludes 104 weekend days and one odd day, was the sum to which the workers would have been entitled if they had not been paid a day’s wages and had needed to sue the college to recover it; the same amount could be deducted by the college for the loss of a day’s work, the court said.

Cooper and others v Isle of Wight College [2007] EWHC 2831