Ambulance workers’ holiday pay to include overtime for ‘shift overruns’ 5 June 2017
In Flowers and others v East of England Ambulance Trust , the employment tribunal held that ambulance workers’ non- guaranteed overtime in respect of “shift overruns” should be included in the calculation of their holiday pay, but that on the facts of this case purely voluntary overtime does not have to be included.
Personnel Today has published a useful summary of the outcome of this employment tribunal:
“The respondent accepts that the ‘shift overrun’ non-guaranteed overtime should be taken into account in determining statutory holiday pay under the WTR [Working Time Regulations] or WTD [Working Time Directive] and, if necessary, it is possible to construe the WTR to mean that such payments should be taken into account…
There has therefore been unauthorised deductions from the wages of those claimants who, in the three months prior to any period of leave, undertook such non-guaranteed overtime.”
Workers at East of England Ambulance Trust brought unlawful deductions from wages claims in relation to how the trust calculates their holiday pay.
The ambulance workers claimed that their paid annual leave should have included: overtime that is required when a shift overruns (ie if their shift ends during an emergency); and voluntary overtime that the workers can choose to do when it is offered (ie additional shifts planned in advance).
The employment tribunal concluded that the trust has to include non-guaranteed overtime for “shift overruns” in the workers’ holiday pay.
The tribunal acknowledged that it is not open to any of the claimants to leave at the end of the shift if they are in the middle of an emergency call.
As an essential requirement of the ambulance workers’ role, overtime pay for shift overruns must be included in holiday pay.
The tribunal therefore upheld the claims for unauthorised deductions from wages of workers who, in the three months prior to any period of annual leave, were required to do this type of overtime.
However, the employment tribunal accepted that there is no obligation for the workers to perform the second type of overtime, purely voluntary overtime.
The tribunal accepted from the case law that it was open to it to find that purely voluntary overtime be included in holiday pay.
But there was no evidence before this tribunal of a pattern in voluntary overtime: it varies depending on the nature of the role, the type of work undertaken and the needs of the organisation.
While the workers can be asked by the trust whether or not they are available to do this type of overtime, there is no obligation on staff to accept this overtime.
The tribunal left it to the parties to agree the remedy.
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Shared parental pay - father wins sex discrimination case 8 June 2017
A father whose wife was advised to return to work to combat post-natal depression has won a sex discrimination claim after his employer told him that he would be paid full pay for only two weeks’ paternity leave.
Personnel Today reports on the case Ali v Capita Customer Management Ltd :
Mr Ali was a former Telefonica employee who transferred to Capita. When Telefonica employees transferred, Telefonica’s policies transferred with them.
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