Compassionate holiday (UK) only please?

My wife's annual leave ran from April 1st 2007 to April 1st 2008 and she recieves only 10 days holiday a year as she is deemed as a part time employee. During her last leave year she had used up all her annual holiday but had to take compassionate holiday. It wasn't a case of swinging the lead it was the fact that our daughter was seriuosly ill.

She heard no more from her employer (a national company) until she applied for holiday this year and her employer informed that because of the 4 days she had as compassionate they would be taken off this years leave entitlement. Which leaves her with just 6 days.

To me that sounds wrong. It is no fault of my wifes that our daughter fell ill after she had used up all her holiday entltlement.
Has anyone out there suffered similar circumstances and is this legal.

I am waiting for an answer back from someone dealing with employment law but that takes time so if anyone out there can help it would be much appreciated.

As a mother she is entitled to unpaid compassionate leave from work

As they have decided it was holiday leave then she may have been misunderstood or they have made an error.

If she was paid for the leave then they assumed it was holiday leave regardless of the reasons for it or when it was taken. If they didnt pay her for it she should remind them that the leave was unpaid compassionate leave.

She should approach her employer about it to get it resolved

If you want more info on rights concerning workers leave then have a look at the ACAS website

The last starred paragrah applies, but I copied the whole section for you.

Employment Law Explained
Parental Leave
All employees who have completed one year's service with their employer and who have, or expect to have, responsibility for a child are entitled to 13 weeks' unpaid Parental Leave to care for the child. Do not confuse parental leave with paternal leave.

In the case of the mother, this can be in addition to Maternity Leave.

The 13 weeks' Parental Leave applies up to the child's fifth birthday (a child's 18th birthday in cases of disability).

The 13 weeks' parental leave MUST be taken in blocks or multiples of one week. 21 days' notice should be given by the employee to the employer. A maximum of 4 weeks per year may be taken by an employee and an employer can postpone an employee's right to take Parental Leave because of business requirements.

Such postponement cannot take place immediately after the child's birth.

****All employees are allowed unpaid leave in case of emergency involving a dependant. A dependant can be defined as a child, spouse, parent etc*****. "

Okay, the bottom line is that your wife has/ had the right to compassionate time off to deal with the emergency but that time off is UNPAID unless (as is common in the public sector but considerably less so in the private sector) there is an additional availability of paid leave on compassionate gounds (and such availability is ALWAYS discretionary, NOT statutory).
'Employees have the statutory right, no matter what their length of service, to take reasonable unpaid time off work to deal with an emergency involving a dependent. This leave is intended to cover genuine emergencies and there is no set limit as to the number of times a employee can be absent from work under this right. ' (Oxford Brooks university conditions of service)

By tying it to annual leave, the employer is basically offering her the option of taking the leave as paid annual leave, but in such a case, obviously expects the leave days to be worked during the subsequent year, not unreasonably. If your wife wishes to retain her annual leave allowance for this year, she will have to ask that the employer treats the leave taken last year to look after your child as unpaid compassionate leave of absence. The employer must grant this under the statutory right to unpaid compassionate leave to deal with the sickness of a dependent child.... but clearly she will be obliged to pay back her salary for the four days concerned. I think, to be honest, it appears that the company is doing their best to be flexible by offering her the chance not to lose paid time, and would not appreciate the suggestion that they are acting otherwise.

Time off for dependants (compassionate leave)
'Compassionate leave' is a term used to describe time off work to cope with personal circumstances. There is a statutory right called 'time off for dependants' which gives you the right to unpaid time off in some circumstances. When this right doesn't apply you will have to see what compassionate leave scheme your employer offers.

J