The manufacturers’ organisation EEF has called on the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to exempt employers that already offer generous holiday packages from new regulations.
The employers’ group said new regulations aimed at increasing paid annual holiday entitlement could impose unnecessary restrictions on workers.
The regulations propose adding eight days to the current statutory entitlement of four weeks’ paid annual holiday.
If the regulations go ahead in their current form, the EEF claims employers that already give more than 28 days holiday a year will be faced with three sets of rules governing holiday;
the Working Time regulations and EU law that govern the first four weeks
the new rules that govern the next eight days
the contract of employment law that governs any remaining days.
The EEF believes this could affect flexible benefits packages that allow workers to trade holiday entitlement for other benefits such as healthcare, insurance, death in service benefit, store vouchers, and childcare schemes for example.
Workers may also face further restrictions on their ability to carry over holiday entitlement to another year.
Peter Schofield, EEF director of legal and employment affairs, said: “Instead of targeting the vulnerable at work these proposals risk putting unnecessary hurdles in the path of good employers and workers.
“Any new legislation in this area should be targeted at the mischief it seeks to remedy and not impose restrictions on the freedom of others.”
