Holidays and sickness absence
[ch 3: page 76]In their 2018 report on sickness absence, Health and wellbeing at work, CIPD/Simplyhealth highlight the problem of “leavism” — employees taking leave when they should be off sick (see page 21). It underlines the overlap that can arise between paid annual leave and paid sick leave, which could put sick workers at a disadvantage.
Rights to paid annual leave in the UK are made up of a statutory European Working Time Directive component (four weeks), a statutory UK component (taking the statutory total to 5.6 weeks which can include bank holidays) and an occupational or contractual component.
How each of these rights should be interpreted in the case of sickness absence has been addressed through a series of European and domestic rulings, but unions can negotiate for statutory rights to be applied to all leave including any contractual entitlement.