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Davies Ndumiso

MANY employers and workers have disputes related to accessing vacation leave where some employers refuse employees time to take vacation leave and at times employees are forced to take vacation leave.

Vacation leave is a right granted to employees by the Labour Act Chapter 28:01 in section 14A where the employee accrues 2,5 days a month, giving the worker a total of 30 days per year. For a worker to qualify for vacation leave, he or she must have served at least a year.  However, many employers are flexible in that they grant accrued vacation leave days even before the employee serves for a year. Employees can therefore not demand to access vacation leave before they complete one year of service.

The law puts a cap on vacation leave accrual by an employee to a maximum of 90 days or three months leave. On accruing 90 days, the employee stops accruing vacation leave. However, if the failure to take vacation leave up to accrual of 90 days is a result of the employer’s conduct, I believe it will be an unfair labour practice by the employer to stop the accrual.

The taking of vacation leave is at the employer’s discretion but it must be managed fairly as guided by section 65 (i) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe which emphasises fairness.

Each worker must be sent on vacation leave at least once every year. Workers are however not barred from asking for vacation leave at any time but the employer may turn down the request and grant the worker vacation leave some other time, depending on work exigencies. Complete denial of vacation leave is an unfair labour practice.

When counting vacation leave, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are counted as part of vacation leave. For example, an employee who takes Friday off and comes back on Monday the following week, three days will be taken off accrued vacation leave days.

The law does not provide for cash in lieu vacation leave. However, at common law parties are free to negotiate and agree to payment of cash in lieu of leave. Case law has also provided for payment in lieu of leave where an employee with accrued vacation leave terminates employment contract for whatever reason.

The management of vacation leave can be better handled through creation of vacation leave management policies which are clear on issues such as, leave accrual, payment of cash in lieu of leave, leave accrual limits, conversion of overtime into vacation leave, vacation leave roster and many others.

Vacation leave is a cost and is paid at the prevailing rate when it is accessed and as such, to reduce liability burden on the balance sheet, vacation leave has to be kept at a minimum thus many organisations allow even those employees who have not served a year to take vacation leave.

In conclusion, the overall management of vacation leave must be done in a reasonable manner where the granting of vacation leave follows a set roster or employees are given reasonable notice so that they prepare to go on vacation leave. Cash in lieu of leave should be an option of last resort where employees cannot be released otherwise the spirit of the legislation is that employees should take vacation leave to rest.

λ Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: Email: [email protected]