Annual Leave

[Lightning McQueen]

Does anyone know if an employer can force you to take annual leave?

[Q.]

They do at my place of employment. Put very simply, they allocate X amount of money for annual leave in a yearly budget and when a high number of people don't use it in one year, but decide to use all their accumulated AL in the next year it can blow the yearly budget.

[gadj1976]

check your conditions of employment with HR (if they exist in your employment).

[devilsadvocate]

Yes, an employer can force you to take annual leave.
It doesn't have to be in your employment contract either.

[Lightning McQueen]

I'm supposed to lock in 5 weeks of A/L for the next twelve months, the problem is that I have a family matter that is going to force me to take some time off in addition, I can't predict when I'm going to need it therefore I'm holding back on locking in dates.

[saintal]

We’re forced to have the time between xmas and new year’s off.

But yes, I have heard of employers forcing employees to maintain a low level of annual leave accrued.

[Rik E Boy]

Pretty soon that won't be the only thing you'll be forced into by your employer as we vote away the rights of millions to prevent a thousand from coming to our country. Vote one KKK. They'll stop the boats.

regards,

REB

[mighty_tiger_79]

Yes, an employer can force you to take annual leave.
It doesn't have to be in your employment contract either.

correct, i was forced to take some AL recently.

[wycbloods]

Does anyone know if an employer can force you to take annual leave?

They can only force you to take 25% of any leave you have accrued above 8 weeks.

[wycbloods]

They do at my place of employment. Put very simply, they allocate X amount of money for annual leave in a yearly budget and when a high number of people don't use it in one year, but decide to use all their accumulated AL in the next year it can blow the yearly budget.

They can't force you to do that though quichey, they are well within their rights to ask their employees to do that but legally they can't force you to do that unless you have at least 8 weeks accrued and then they can only force you to take 25% of that amount above 8 weeks.

[wycbloods]

Yes, an employer can force you to take annual leave.
It doesn't have to be in your employment contract either.

Correct refer my post above it is legislated to that effect.

[Dog_ger]

Yes, an employer can force you to take annual leave.
It doesn't have to be in your employment contract either.

Correct.

I have 16 weeks annual leave accumulated.

& 500+ hours sick leave accumulated.

I love my job. No Bull.

It doesn't pay what I'm worth, but it pays the bills.

I handle stress better than some.....

I am only here until I win the X-Lotto.....

[devilsadvocate]

Pretty soon that won't be the only thing you'll be forced into by your employer as we vote away the rights of millions to prevent a thousand from coming to our country. Vote one KKK. They'll stop the boats.

regards,

REB

You clearly have no understanding whatsoever of the Fair Work Act and its complete and utter inflexibility.

I look back to the fear campaign run by the ALP at the last election whereby a mum was on the phone asking her employer if she could start work later (or something to that effect) due to a lack of childcare facilities. The employer (not audible) is obviously saying that if she doesn't come to work, she'll lose her job.

Well, what a load of rot. How is that different to the Fair Work Act? In the case above, Work Choices allowed for the employee to negotiate with her employer from day 1 flexible working hours. The Fair Work Act dictates what hours a worker is allowed to work and be paid award wages - outside these hours, the employer is stung with huge overtime penalty rates. Not only that, an employee is not able to negotiate flexible working hours before reaching 1 year of service.

A part time employee under Work Choices may have had a contract for say 3 days per week. If they got to a holiday period or other time of the year where they wanted/needed additional $, providing the employer had the work available, that employee could opt to do extra hours and be paid their award rate. Fast forward to the Fair Work Act and an employee contracted part time for 22.5 hours per week, cannot work even 1 additional hour for the week without attracting loading. At present it's 50% for the first 2 hours of any additional shift (regardless of the day it is worked) and 100% loading for any hours after those first 2.

What a joke!

My wife will be on average $150 per week worse off, due to her inability (or rather her employers new policy not allowing her) to pick up additional shifts on weekends etc due to the ridiculous loading imposed on the employer. What's just as bad is the employees who hold the regular shifts on the weekends that may give the odd one up to someone like my wife is now not allowed to do so.

So - Fair Work Act flexible? give me a ******* break.The ALP have a red banner for a reason.

Vote 1 Tony Abbott and lobby him to fully implement Work Choices. If you understood Work Choices rather than just believing the smear campaign, you'd realise it's a great step forward in Australian Industrial Relations. Or are you a union boss?

[devilsadvocate]

They do at my place of employment. Put very simply, they allocate X amount of money for annual leave in a yearly budget and when a high number of people don't use it in one year, but decide to use all their accumulated AL in the next year it can blow the yearly budget.

They can't force you to do that though quichey, they are well within their rights to ask their employees to do that but legally they can't force you to do that unless you have at least 8 weeks accrued and then they can only force you to take 25% of that amount above 8 weeks.

Sorry mate, but do you mind posting the source for that legislation? It's certainly not in the Fair Work Act.

The Fair Work Act stipulates the following:

Directing an employee to take annual leave

An award or agreement (including transitional award or agreement based instruments) may allow for an employee to be directed to take annual leave in certain circumstances, for example:

* during a period of shut down (such as between Christmas and New Year)
* if the employee has an excessive accumulated annual leave balance.

However, the employer’s requirement or direction to take leave must be reasonable, taking into account factors such as:

* the needs of the employee and the employer’s business
* any agreed arrangement with the employee
* custom and practice of the business
* timing of the direction or requirement to take leave
* reasonableness of the period of notice given

Therefore, if the employers policy is to force employees to take AL any time they build up 4 weeks for example, you've got no choice.

[Media Park]

My workplace is pretty the opposite.

Accrue 4 weeks per year, and it would need to be an exceptional occasion to get more than 1 week off at a time.

Generally 2 separate holidays they seem to consider adequate, so that's two weeks each year that add up...

Problem is, my employer thinks that everyone is so happy that they'll never leave...

Except that women get pregnant and have babies, blokes get bored for the repetitive nature, and most have a history of leaving after two or three years for greener pastures.

That's around 6 weeks that they need to pay out, plus unused sick leave, and time-in-lieu.

They'd be better off to schedule holidays for everyone- I'd be stoked to take four off in a row myself!!!

[mighty_tiger_79]

yes vote 1 tony abbott who will roll back workchoices and has said that he will strip away penalty rates across the board including weekend loadings.

I dont think so.

[Psyber]

yes vote 1 tony abbott who will roll back workchoices and has said that he will strip away penalty rates across the board including weekend loadings.
I don't think so.

Was I hallucinating when I thought I heard him say he would definitely not bring back Work Choices.
All he failed to exclude was some tinkering around the edges of the present legislation if it wasn't working after it had been given a term of government.
And Julia has not excluded that either, nor even promised not to modify it within her first term.

[mighty_tiger_79]

well in february this year he was adament in bringing work choices back and even commented on stripping away penalty rates...

[Hondo]

Sort of off topic but anyone working for a smaller company should be careful about letting too much annual leave accrue in case something goes wrong with the business and then you may not receive all your entitlements when they get cashed out. You also run the risk of the employer trying to dodgy your entitlements down by claiming book-keeping errors etc when it comes time to pay out.

I have seen some huge leave balances in my time. If they are in a big company then generally it's safer but I still wouldn't recommend anyone holding huge balances of leave. Take it (or at least some) while you can.

Just a tip

[devilsadvocate]

well in february this year he was adament in bringing work choices back and even commented on stripping away penalty rates...

He's guaranteed that he will not change the Fair Work Act for 3 years.