Women are main losers from Bank Holiday pay cut

As the majority of the workforce look forward to the Easter break, nearly three million workers - two thirds of them women - are likely to be facing a pay cut as their employer refuses to pay them for the Easter bank holidays.

A TUC analysis of official statistics shows that 2.7 million workers were not paid for the Easter Monday bank holiday last year. Of those who lost out, 1.7 million were women (64 per cent of the losers and 15 per cent of all women workers). One million (36 per cent) were men.

This is because it is legal in the UK for employers to treat bank holidays as a normal working day, and then send workers home without pay.

Many other people will be forced to take the Easter bank holidays as part of their minimum right to four weeks paid holiday. The UK is the only EU member state (excluding the accession nations) that allows employers to treat public holidays against the European minimum of four weeks paid holiday. The UK also gets three fewer bank holidays than the EU average.

Brendan Barber,TUC General Secretary, said, 'It's 133 years since Gladstone introduced the Easter Monday bank holiday, yet a significant minority of UK workers are still not getting a paid holiday. Most people probably assume that they have a right to a day off with full pay, but they do not. It's about time the government gave workers proper holiday rights, and gave us enough bank holidays to bring us up to the European average.'

Those most likely to lose out are women workers in low paid and less skilled jobs - those most unable to afford to lose a day%u2019s pay. The job types with the highest proportion of women losing out are elementary occupations (24 per cent), sales and customer service jobs (23 per cent) and personal service jobs (23 per cent). Workers in the hotel and restaurant sector are the most likely to be sent home without pay (32 per cent), but the biggest group losing out are in health and social work where more than 400,000 are hit. Workers in the South West, Wales and East Anglia are the most likely to lose out. (Full tables below)

The TUC is highlighting people who lose out on holiday entitlements as part of the "It's about time" campaign calling for more working time rights and better work life balance in the UK.

Not paid for taking Easter Monday holiday - analysis by occupation