WRC orders full pay without leave deduction for worker’s public holiday

The WRC found that an employee rostered to work on a public holiday but required to take the day off must receive full pay without losing annual leave. The decision, dated 23 March 2016, also set out the employee’s entitlement in other public holiday situations and directed retrospective implementation from the change in practice in 2014. The employee said she worked set days each week and had lost leave hours when a public holiday fell on a regular workday. The employer said its policy awarded one fifth of contracted weekly hours for each public holiday, regardless of an employee’s roster. The officer found that requiring the employee to use leave for part of a rostered day reduced the holiday benefit. For holidays on non-rostered days, and rostered days when the employee worked, she was entitled to an additional payment equivalent to one fifth of her contracted weekly hours. A second complaint was withdrawn.