The Basic Conditions of Employment Act states that the provisions for annual leave do not apply to an employee who works less than 24 hours a month for an employer, and also these provisions do not apply to leave granted to an employee in excess of the entitlement allowed by the act.
An annual leave cycle is a period of 12 months with the same employer, calculated from the employees start date or from the completion of the emp[loyee’s previous leave cycle.
The entitlement is 21 consecutive days on full remuneration and if an employee works a five-day week then this is equal to 15 working days, or if the employee works a six-day week then it is equal to 18 working days.
Whatever number of working days falls within the 21 consecutive days is the number of working days on full pay that an employee should be granted for annual leave purposes. If an employee works a five-day week, then the annual leave would accrue at 1.5 days a month.
An alternative method of calculating annual leave has been provided for in the Act. This provides for an easy means of calculating the annual leave for temporary or fixed-term employees. This method makes provision that the annual leave may be calculated on the basis of one hour of annual leave on full remuneration for every 17 hours on which the emplyee worked, or was entitled to be paid, or it could be calculated on the basis of one day annual leave on full remuneration for every 17 days on which the employee worked or was entitled to be paid.
This method of accrual may only be applied by agreement with the employee. If there is no such agreement then the employer is obliged to apply the accrual at the rate of 1.25 days or 1.5 days monthly.
Should a public holiday fall during a period while an employee is on annual leave and on the day in which an employee would ordinarily work, then the employee is entitled to an extra day annual leave for each such public holiday.
The employee is entitled to take whatever leave he has accumulated in an annual leave cycle on consecutive days. This means that if an employee has, for example, accumulated 10 days during an annual leave cycle, he is entitled to take those 10 days consecutively.
Annual leave not taken during an annual leave cycle is automatically carried over to the next annual leave cycle. Should the leave be carried over and the employee has still not taken leave within six months, the employee could demand to take that leave from the previous cycle and the employer may not refuse