Taskforce aims to limit impact of ruling

The government has announced an urgent taskforce to assess the possible impact of the overtime and holiday pay ruling (see previous article). The taskforce is made up of seven employers’ organisations and has no trade union presence.

It includes the Confederation of British Industry, the EEF manufacturers’ organisation, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors and the British Retail Consortium.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills said the purpose of the taskforce is to “look into limiting” the impact of the holiday pay ruling, and to assess its financial impact on business. General union Unite dismissed the panel as ludicrous and “just full of the business lobby who have been whipping this judgment up into a storm to meet their own ends”.

In one important respect, the decision is good news for employers, because it removes the prospect of large backdated claims for unpaid holiday pay stretching back years.

This is because the EAT has ruled that any tribunal claim for holiday pay will be out of time if it relates to holiday taken more than three months before the date of the claim. As such, it does not “open the floodgates”.

In any case, as TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has pointed out, in 1999, “a change to the law meant that six million people gained more holiday entitlements, and businesses easily absorbed the increase and employment continued to rise”.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/taskforce-to-assess-judgment-in-holiday-pay-ruling

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/04/holiday-pay-ruling-reward-5m-workers