12th December 2017
Man wins back 13 years’ worth of Holiday Pay
A former employee, Conley King is seeking £27,000 from the Sash Window Workshop, after working there for 13 years.
An EU court has backed a British worker claiming for 13 years’ worth of unpaid and untaken annual leave. Conley King worked for the Sash Window Workshop on the basis of a “self-employed and commission-only contract” from 1999 until 2012 when he retired age 65. The annual leave he took was unpaid. His case was brought to the Court of Appeal after an employment tribunal ruled Mr King was entitled to payment in lieu of the leave. Mr King thought to be 70 and married, was seeking £27,000 in holiday pay according to the BBC, but his employers refused on the basis that he was “self-employed”. The appeal court asked the court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a ruling on how EU law should be interpreted, which it made yesterday in Luxembourg. The CJEU said that a worker such as Mr King was entitled to be reimbursed for his leave.
James Williams of Henderson chambers, who acted for Mr King, said the decision would be of “great significance” to those wrongly categorised as self-employed. He said: “They should now be able to bring on termination of their engagement, a claim for all holiday pay that they should have been paid during the working relationship. In the longer term, the decision should reduce the financial incentive for employers to deny that their staff are entitled to holiday pay.
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