Preston Russell Law - Legal Services for Southern People

Court of Appeal decision - Long Service Leave

Saturday, July 31, 2010 by Mary-Jane Thomas, partner category Work to Rule

A very interesting case has come out in the Court of Appeal about the affect of the additional week’s holiday that was introduced in April 2007.

I am particularly relieved with the decision because it is in accordance with advice I have given in the past.
 
The case was taken by a Meat workers union. Meat workers were employed under a collective agreement which provided that an employee would, upon completion of six years current continuous service with the company , be entitled to an additional week of annual holiday. That was negotiated at the time that employees would have gone from three weeks to four weeks.

Of course after April 2007 those employees said they were now entitled to 5 weeks holiday – the employer disagreed. 

It went to the Employment Court where the central issue was whether from 1 April 2007 employees employed for six or more years were entitled to one week’s annual leave in additional to the four weeks statutory minimum. The Employment Court found that they were.
 
The argument accepted (in its simplest form) by the Employment Court was that if there was a clause which  provide an additional week’s annual holiday as a reward for long service then if five weeks holiday was not given then essentially employees were not getting a reward for long service as they had contracted for. In other words if they just got the four weeks they were just getting the Statutory minimum when the had negotiated for an additional week above that to reward long service. 
 
The Court of Appeal agreed with the Union and the Employment Court .There is a distinction between the position where employees negotiated for four weeks holiday “just because” and so were not entitled to an additional week when the statutory minimum increased and employees who specifically negotiated a reward if they worked for a certain number of years.