A change in UK law relating to holiday entitlement is likely following an European Court of Justice ruling in Luxembourg which grants paid holidays to millions who have not had them.
The Luxembourg court declared that UK rules requiring workers to be continuously employed for at least thirteen weeks by the same employer before being entitled to paid holidays was illegal, breaching EU Working Time Directives.
Members of the Court today, (Monday June 26), accepted an opinion issued in February by the Advocate General of the ECJ which stated that the European Working Time Directive precludes national governments from excluding groups of workers from the rights that the directive gives them.
Under legislation introduced in 1998, the UK government excludes employees from accruing their rights to paid annual leave under the Working Time regulations until they have completed a qualifying period of employment of 13 weeks with their employer.
The result is that hundreds of thousands of workers previously denied paid leave will now benefit. The ruling is likely to affect college and university lecturing staff, cleaners, media workers, teachers.
