Up to 6 million people lost out on Jubilee holiday

With most people across the UK celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, for those people having to work, the TUC has estimated that up to 6 million people may find their pay packet is lighter this month because of it.

According to the TUC, even though Monday June 3 was declared a day of national celebration, a substantial number of people were sent home without pay, whilst even more will have to work as though it were a normal Monday.

As a result the TUC is calling on the Government to change the law to ensure:

• employees are paid for taking public holidays as time off
• employees working on public holidays are paid at least double time, or are paid the normal rate and given an extra day’s compensatory paid leave
• the UK has three extra bank holidays to bring us up to the EU average

Although 16 million employees take all bank holidays as time off, 6.8 million employees (3 out of 10) work at least one bank holiday per year – and of this number 5% who work on a bank holiday do not get paid to do so.

According to TUC statistics in Northern Ireland 435,000 workers (84%) are paid to take public holidays. 23,000 (4%) are only paid for some and 60,000 (12%) are paid for none.

John Monks, General Secretary of the TUC, said: “This issue is about our national sense of fairness. Bank holidays like the Golden Jubilee should be national days of celebration, enjoyed by as many people as possible - and that means employees must be properly paid for these holidays.

'While we recognise that some people must work on public holidays, they should be compensated for the inconvenience of having to work while the rest of the nation is at play. To stop bullying and exploitation of vulnerable workers there should be new legal minimum standards of pay for public holiday working.”

(AMcE)