UK Supreme Court rules in favor of a music teacher

UK Supreme Court rules in favor of a music teacher

Numerous educators on term-time-only contracts could be entitled to back pay after the verdict

Thousands of employers, pro-rating the holiday entitlement of people working part of the year on permanent contracts, will henceforth have to change their practices. They could also face claims for underpaying the staff in the past.

It becomes relevant after UK's five Supreme Court Justices ruled in favor of Lesley Brazel. The judgment means such employees should receive the same amount of paid annual leave as their colleagues working all year round.

The judges were asked to consider whether Brazel, a music teacher, with a continuing contract (but who worked only certain weeks of the year), was entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave, the minimum stipulated by the UK Working Time Regulations (WTR).

Brazel's employer, Harpur Trust, a charity that runs Bedford Girls' School, where Brazel works, argued that she was not entitled to the 5.6 weeks afforded to full-time workers. It stressed that the teacher's leave entitlement should be calculated proportionally so the weeks in which she did not work reduced her paid annual leave.

But, unanimously, the judges upheld the earlier decision of the court of appeal.

In the judgment, Lady Rose and Lady Arden wrote that the Trust had argued, "The construction upheld by the court of appeal leads to an absurd result. The absurdity is that a worker in Brazel's position (and in the position of some of the other hypothetical workers posited by the Harpur Trust), receives holiday pay, which represents a higher proportion of her annual pay than full-time or part-time workers who work regular hours."

The judges stated, "We recognize, of course, that construction which leads to an absurd result is, in general, unlikely to be what the Parliament intended. However, we do not regard any slight favoring of workers with a highly atypical work pattern as being so absurd as to justify the wholesale revision of the statutory scheme, which the Harpur Trust's alternative methods require."

The judges said the idea of leave accruing over the year as and when hours were worked was inconsistent with WTR.

Justice Rose and Justice Arden also said the methods proposed by the Trust would require "extremely complicated" calculations and for all employers and workers to keep detailed records of every hour worked, even if they were not paid at an hourly rate.

Delighted with the court's ruling, Brazel remarked, "I am pleased to have secured my holiday pay rights in accordance with the law and my contract of employment in the highest court in the country. I hope that others can now benefit from this verdict."

The judges, meanwhile, noted that the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy had issued guidelines on holiday pay reflecting the court of appeal's decision after Brazel's victory.

Unison, the UK's largest union, representing millions of full-time and part-time employees, who provide public services, welcomed the court's decision. It had intervened in the case because of its implications for thousands of school staff employed on term-time-only contracts.

Christina McAnea, the General Secretary at Unison, said, "Teaching assistants or other education employees might only be contracted to work when schools are open, but they are also sometimes required to do their jobs at other times. The court's decision clarifies the law and says that annual leave taken by someone who works less than a full year can no longer be pro-rated to that of a colleague employed all-year round."

Nick Hurley, a partner and head of the employment group at the law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, stated that though there might be a "windfall" for workers to who the judgment applied, such employees tend to be lower paid and do not have regular guaranteed hours.

Joanne Moseley, an employment lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, said, "We have seen that organizations have been caught out by previous holiday pay rulings and this one is sure to place a significant financial burden, which, for many, could run into millions of pounds."