[theoh]

What does paid holiday mean, exactly, in a zero-hour contract? If there's no guaranteed minimum rate at which one is paid during any given period, it seems like there can be no way to assert that one is on "paid leave".

I tried googling it and found this, which seems inconclusive: https://www.breathehr.com/blog/zero-hours-contracts-holiday-...

[detaro]

According to the gov.uk page above, it's based on the actual hours worked: if you've accumulated X hours since start of the calculation period, you get the appropriate amount of time allocated. Presumably they can just like normal employees request time off for a specific time, and get paid for their time during that? For people only having very few hours, it seems weird, but if someone gets scheduled a lot the right to block out time seems relevant.

[DanBC]

> Irregular hours

> People working irregular hours (like shift workers or term-time workers) are entitled to paid time off for every hour they work. They need to calculate their leave entitlement for irregular hours.

That takes you to this calculator: https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement

[theoh]

Do you see the point I'm making, though?

Edit: I'm not asking about the rate at which paid leave builds up, I'm asking about how the employee can ever be said to have used it up. Given that zero-hours contracts are a Bad Thing, I don't expect this to make any sense.

If I have accrued 24 hours of paid leave, and potentially work 6hrs a day, typically one day a week, do I need to pre-emptively use all of those 24 hours just to take leave for a block of 4 weekdays? It seems like I might have to, in the face of an unscrupulous employer.