Employment Barristers Lachlan Wilson and Mathew Gullick in Court of Appeal case concerning holiday entitlement of workers on zero hours contracts

7th June 2019

At the beginning of May, Lachlan Wilson and Mathew Gullick appeared before the Court of Appeal for the employee, a school's peripatetic music teacher, in a challenge brought by the employer against the decision of the EAT (reported as Brazel v Harpur Trust at [2018] ICR D10) that, in cases involving workers on zero hours contracts, there was no basis to reduce the holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks under the Working Time Regulations 1998 or to change the underlying rationale of the method of calculation of holiday pay based on s.224 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (including disregarding weeks when no work is done).

The employer contended that holiday entitlement for such workers, or the method of calculating holiday pay, should be reduced on a pro-rata basis by reference to the actual period worked within the holiday year.

UNISON were granted permission to intervene. Judgment is awaited.