KEY POINTS:
After five year's employment I negotiated one extra week of annual holiday from three weeks to four.
This extra week of holiday is a reward for length of service with the company. I asked my manager how the changes to the Holidays Act next April will affect me,
when everyone will get four weeks paid holiday.
The company said the Government wanted to increase holiday entitlement to four weeks, not give everyone an extra week's leave. I feel I am losing an entitlement that I negotiated. My reward for extended service with the company has now been superseded by legislation. Is this fair?
Unfortunately for you, your employer is right. The Holidays Act 2003 increases all employees' minimum annual holiday entitlement from three weeks to four weeks. Importantly, it does not say everyone gets an extra week of annual leave. It simply says everyone will get a minimum of four weeks.
Because the entitlement is a minimum entitlement, it does not mean that employees who already get four or more weeks' annual holidays will automatically get an extra week. Anything above the minimum is a matter for negotiation between the employee and the employer.
The situation might be different if the annual holidays clause in your employment agreement contained looser wording.
For example, if it entitled you to 'an additional week's annual holiday in recognition of your five years of service with the company', you could argue that this extra week was in addition to the minimum entitlement provided by the Holidays Act.
But the clause in your agreement is quite clear - you are entitled to 20 days annual leave. So there is no room to argue that you are entitled to more than this.
You are right that many people are in your situation. There are lots of people who are already entitled to four or more weeks leave and feel the increase to four weeks for everyone is unfair. One thing commentators are saying is that you are not losing anything - you are still entitled to your four weeks, it's just that everyone else is as well. Of course, that may be little comfort to you if you feel you have worked hard to earn something extra in addition to the minimum annual leave entitlement. But the increase to four weeks for everyone next year does not address that.
So the only way you can try to get five weeks' annual holidays is by putting forward a particularly convincing case to your employer (although it sounds as though your employer may be difficult to persuade).
The labour market is currently tipped in your favour - skilled employees are hard to find, so now is a good time to negotiate for better employment terms with your employer. You may want to consider moving on to new employment where you can negotiate five weeks leave.