Thirty years since last bank holiday was created

Today (1 May) is the 30^th anniversary of the creation of the May Day holiday, which was the last bank holiday to be introduced in the UK.

To mark the occasion, the TUC is calling for the introduction of a new autumn bank holiday to celebrate the “great British tradition” of volunteering.

Britain, with just eight bank holidays, has the second lowest amount of bank holidays in Europe. According to the TUC, a new bank holiday would help repay employees for their part in building the UK’s economic success:

“The real value of the economy has doubled since 1978, but wages have not kept pace. If today’s workers had the same share of the economy that went to wages in 1978 [when the last bank holiday was introduced] they would each have an extra £2,339 per year – easily enough to pay for another bank holiday.”

The suggested new bank holiday, which would be called Community Day, would be held in late October to celebrate and encourage volunteering and community activity. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber says:

“We've gone thirty years without a new bank holiday and the UK is now languishing behind the rest of Europe. People are crying out for a new bank holiday, a call that politicians should be listening to.”

But is it a legal requirement for employers to give employees bank holidays off in the first place? Sejal Raja, partner at RadcliffesLeBrasseur, says no:

"There is no legal requirement for staff to have bank holidays off.  However, if employers require employees to work bank holidays, then this should be stated quite clearly in the terms and conditions of employment.

Bank holidays can also prove problematic for calculating holiday entitlement for part-time workers. For managers struggling with this, Linky Trott, partner at Edwin Coe LLP gave this advice in the briefing, Employment law: common conundrums: 

“For a full time employee therefore who would usually get 20 days holiday plus bank holidays, they would be told that they get 28 days holiday including bank holidays and that they will not be required to work bank holidays but that bank holidays off will be deducted from their holiday entitlement. On the face of it, this makes no difference for full timers.  

“The difference however is that it makes it easy and fairer to pro rata holidays for part timers. Under this system, if you have a part timer who works Monday, Wednesday and Friday, if they are told that they are entitled to pro rata entitlement of 12 days holiday (3/5th of the 20) plus bank holidays, because they usually work on Mondays and Fridays when bank holidays fall, they could end up having more pro rata holiday (12 days plus 6 or 7 Mondays and Fridays which are bank holidays).

“If however they are told that they are entitled to 3/5th of 28 days inclusive of bank holidays and that if they take a bank holiday it will be from their holiday entitlement, they will always be entitled to the same number of days whenever the bank holidays fall, i.e. 17 days.  

“In summary, articulate holidays by the number of days including bank holidays, tell employees that they are not required to work bank holidays but that it will be deducted from their holiday entitlement and then pro rata all part time employees entitlement by reference to the number of days they work a week.”  

When asked yesterday (30 April) if he is going to give UK workers an extra bank holiday, Gordon Brown said that the Government is currently consulting on the nature of citizenship, and one part of that consultation is on potential bank holidays.