Over 1 million workers 'cheated' out of holiday pay last year

UK employees missed out on a total £2bn worth of paid holiday they were entitled to last year due to poor enforcement, a report has found.

Legally, UK workers get 28 days paid leave for a typical five-day week. But a recent Trade Union Congress’ (TUC) analysis shows 1.1 million workers (1 in 25) didn’t take a single day of paid holiday last year.

On average, this adds up to £1,800 of holiday pay for each affected employee.

Low-income earners were most at risk of losing out, including waiters/waitresses, care workers and home carers, and kitchen and catering assistants.

BME workers hardest hit

Black and minority ethnic (BME) workers were hardest hit.

The report found that 6% of BME employees didn’t receive any paid holiday compared to 4% of white employees.

Why did workers miss out on holiday pay?

The TUC report found several reasons why workers missed out on paid holiday:

• unhealthy working cultures where workers are afraid of requesting time off in case they could be poorly treated
• unrealistic workloads that prevent workers from taking leave
• employers deliberately denying holiday requests or managing out employees
• employers not keeping up with the law

Key employment rights missing

As well as holiday pay, the TUC says millions are missing out on other basic working rights because of a lack of enforcement.

More than one in five of workers are being underpaid the minimum wage, an analysis by the government’s Low Pay Commission found.

On top of this, 1.8 million workers don’t get access to their payslip, so they can’t check their pay is accurate, while another 600,000 are not auto-enrolled into a pension scheme.

TUC's five-point plan:

To hold employers to account, the TUC is calling on Labour ministers to:

• create a well-resourced single enforcement body
• recycle fines back into the enforcement system
• increase the number of inspectors and inspections
• extend the licensing scheme to new sectors
• crack down on migrant worker exploitation

The Fair Work Agency

The Labour government have pledged to introduce a Fair Work Agency as part of the Employment Rights Bill.

This new enforcement body will have the power to crack down on bad employment practices and uphold workers' rights.