URGENT ANSWER NEEDED forced to take two weeks holiday or not be paid for two weeks

Hi There

My Husband has been told he has to take two weeks off as holiday after next week or take two weeks off unpaid (his bosses are taking themselves off skiing) he got a call last night totally out of the blue.

Is this legal? there has been a slow down of work but the business is not currently losing money and my husband was told the day before they had work untill August. I think they got the idea from seeing what car manufacturers are doing and I also believe the are trying to P him off to get him to leave so they do not have to make him redundant in the future. He has worked for them for 13 years but as mentioned before never had a contract. He has earnt them a great deal of money over the years and it is worth noting that the business account is most certainly in credit!

He told them he would discuss it with them face to face on Monday So some advice on where we stand would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

The Working Time Regulations 1998 set the rules surrounding statutory holiday. Regulation 15 says that employers must give employees notice if they want them to take holidays at a particular time. The notice must be at least double the length of time off to be taken - in this case 4 weeks.

Many thanks for your reply, Do you happen to know if they can force him to take time off unpaid? We are worried they could keep doing it whenever work slows down in the future. What rights do workers have once they have been forced to take all their holiday allowance?