Holidays (Employees) Act, 1939

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Annual leave of non-domestic workers.

10.—(1) Every person who employs a non-domestic worker shall, in every employment year of such non-domestic worker during which he has been continuously in the employment of such person and has worked in such employment for not less than eighteen hundred hours, allow at such time as such person thinks fit to such worker seven consecutive whole holidays (in this Act referred to as annual leave).

(2) Where a non-domestic worker is allowed annual leave the employer of such worker shall pay to such worker in respect of such annual leave—

(a) in case the ordinary remuneration of such worker is wholly calculated by reference to time, a sum equivalent to the amount (exclusive of pay for over-time) which such worker received from such employer as salary or wages in respect of the week preceding such annual leave during which such worker worked the normal number of hours on the normal maximum number of days under his contract of service, and

(b) in any other case, a sum equivalent to the amount of his average weekly earnings (exclusive of pay for overtime) for the six months immediately preceding such annual leave if he has been so long employed by such employer but if not, then for any less period during which he has been employed by such employer.

(3) Where—

(a) a non-domestic worker employed by a person ceases, at any time other than the end of an employment year of such worker, to be in the employment of such person, and

(b) such worker has been in the employment of such person during not less than one month in such employment year and has worked not less than one hundred and fifty hours in such month, and

(c) such person has not allowed such worker before such cesser annual leave in respect of the portion of such employment year during which he was so employed,

such person shall pay to such worker at such cesser—

(i) in respect of the first month in the said portion of such employment year during which he has worked for not less than one hundred and fifty hours, a sum equivalent to a full day's pay, and

(ii) in respect of each period (excluding the said first month) of two months in the said portion of such employment year during which he has worked for not less than three hundred hours, a sum equivalent to a full day's pay.

(4) The Minister may, whenever and so often as he so thinks proper, make regulations varying in respect of all or any particular class or classes (defined in such manner and by reference to such things as the Minister thinks proper) of non-domestic workers all or any of the periods of eighteen hundred hours, three hundred hours, or one hundred and fifty hours mentioned in sub-sections (1) and (3) of this section by substituting for such period or periods either such other number of hours or such number of days as the Minister thinks proper, and whenever any such regulations are in force the said sub-sections shall have effect, in respect of the non-domestic workers or the class or classes of non-domestic workers to which such regulations apply, as if the said periods or such of them as are affected by such regulations were varied in the manner stated in such regulations.

(5) In the application of this section to workers who are industrial workers and are under the age of eighteen years—

(a) the period of fifteen hundred hours shall be substituted in sub-sections (1) and (4) for eighteen hundred hours, and

(b) the several periods of two hundred and fifty hours and one hundred and twenty hours shall respectively be substituted in sub-sections (3) and (4) for the several periods of three hundred hours and one hundred and fifty hours,

and this section shall have effect in relation to such workers accordingly.

(6) Where any non-working day or any two or more consecutive non-working days falls or fall immediately before or immediately after a day on which an employer has allowed a non-domestic worker a whole holiday, such non-working day or each of such consecutive non-working days (as the case may be) shall, if such worker does not work thereon for such employer, be deemed for the purposes of this section to be a day on which such employer has allowed such worker a whole holiday.

(7) No day which is a public holiday nor a day on which such non-domestic worker is allowed, in pursuance of the immediately preceding section of this Act, a whole holiday shall be reckoned as a day of annual leave, but if any such day intervenes between days of annual leave, such days shall be deemed to be consecutive notwithstanding such intervention.

(8) This section shall apply to the employment year current at the commencement of this Act of every person who is a non-domestic worker at such commencement, and this section shall have effect in respect of such employment year and such person as if this section had been in force at the beginning of such employment year, but subject to the modifications that—

(a) if such employment year expires within one month after such commencement, the employer of such person shall be deemed to have complied with this section if he allows to such person not later than three months after the expiration of such employment year, such annual leave as such person may be entitled to under this section in respect of such employment year, and

(b) if such employer has before such commencement allowed to such person in such employment year one or more whole holidays which would be annual leave for the purposes of this section but for the fact that such whole holidays were less than seven or were not consecutive or were both less than seven and not consecutive, the said whole holidays so allowed shall be deemed to be annual leave for the purposes of this section and such person shall only be entitled in respect of such employment year to such number (if any) of consecutive whole holidays after such commencement as is equal to the number (if any) of days by which the number of whole holidays so allowed is less than seven.

(9) If the employer of a non-domestic worker fails to allow annual leave to such worker in respect of an employment year of such worker in accordance with this section, the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:—

(a) such employer shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to the penalties mentioned in the Schedule to this Act;

(b) such employer shall (whether proceedings have or have not been taken under paragraph (a) of this sub-section) pay to such worker a sum equivalent to the amount which, under sub-section (2) of this section, he would have been liable to pay to such worker if he had in fact allowed such worker such annual leave and such annual leave had been allowed during the last seven days of such employment year.

(10) Where a person who employs a non-domestic worker proposes to grant such non-domestic worker annual leave in pursuance of this section—

(a) such person shall not later than fourteen days before the day on which such annual leave is to commence give notice of his intention to grant such annual leave and of the day on which it will begin;

(b) if such person fails to comply with paragraph (a) of this sub-section, such person shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to a fine not exceeding five pounds.

(11) If the employer of a non-domestic worker allows to such worker in any employment year a period of annual leave earlier than the last seven days (being days which are reckonable as days of annual leave for the purposes of this section) of such employment year and such worker leaves the employment of such employer before the termination of such employment year, such employer shall not be entitled in respect of such allowance of annual leave to reduce the period of notice required for terminating such employment, nor the pay nor other emoluments to which such worker may be entitled at the time of leaving such employment.