Forced Annual Leave.

[mikef]

That doesn't sound right. Annual Leave and Unpaid Leave is not the same thing. Surely you can't tell everyone in the middle of June "we are shutting down for 2 months, you all WILL go on "Unpaid Annual Leave" ? Just because it's in December doesn't mean it's fair..surely.

It's one thing if you get 20 days leave per year and you use it all up before December and THEN they tell you ,you must take 10 days "forced" leave and THEN tell you it will be unpaid because you already used up your leave [that sounds fair enough] , BUT there's no way i can think it's fair to force you to go on unpaid leave if you never had any leave to begin with and/or they are not giving you enough leave to cover the "forced" leave period.

I wouldn't accept that, since it's open to abuse every-time the company is running low on cash , they just put everyone on some sort of unpaid leave...? Isn't that basically like "suspending without pay" ?

You are right. I did not notice the OP saying that they were being forced to take more leave than they were being granted per year. Unless agreed to by the employees that would amount to unilaterally changing their employment contract.

 

[diabolus]

Hows that fair? Telling you after you've taken leave that you have to take forced leave and they won't pay you because you've used all your leave

Well yes that's not fair, but i know it happens even where i work [being told about forced closure in October for December] . However we are allowed to go negative with leave. So it never becomes "unpaid" leave, it just means the next year you have to curb your leave during the year to catch up. It sucks, and i'm not sure what the legality is, but my employer these things are open for negotiation if it happens. Usually if enough employees throw a fit, they will handle the exceptions [most people go on leave during said period anyway] .

 

[requiem]

I have spoken to a labour lawer and his view is the company is taking a chance. As long as I am available to work in that time, the company cannot penalise me negatively by doing what they are doing...

This should get interesting.

 

[ToxicBunny]

If a company gives you 17 days leave a year, and then forces you to take 21 days leave over christmas.. then you are getting 4 days extra off that the company HAS to pay you for....

(this is of course assuming the forced closure period was communicated timeously etc etc etc, in terms of employees using normal annual leave during the year)...