Thank you all very much for your views and advice. The issue is not about accruing holidays as they have already been accrued from last year so those days are already mine. I have already raised a grievance with this decision and am currently in the middle of a grievance procedure. What I actually need at the minute is a definitive piece of information from somewhere to show to my bosses that they in no way have the right to take my holidays from me while I am on sick leave. So if someone could point me in the right direction as to where I could find this info and have it in black and white I would be very grateful.

I had a groin strain which happened at work, my job involves a lot of manual labour, ie. shifting heavey objects about all day every day. There was no other reason for being off sick other than that and no, no member of my family was away on distant shores getting married.

Yes, it is in my contract. The reason it is there is for long term sickness. Longterm sickness is classed as an absence of 3 or more continuos months absent. As i said in my first posting, this does not bother me as it is clearly in my contract but no-one can show me where the company has the right to reduce my holiday entitlement while I am off sick.

There is definitely no mention on any of my pay dockets during my absence of any holiday pay, they are all cleared marked SSP, ie. sick pay. To be totally honest I don`t think it is a company wide fraud conspiracy, just a local manager trying to show he`s a company`s man and saving the company money by way of "stealing" my holidays.

I am one of those fortunate people who is lucky enough to get full sick pay for six months and then half pay afterwards. My pay docket for the months I was off sick show SSP and then shows SSP offset where the company have paid me my sick pay and then taken back the governments money. By doing this, to me they are saying that I am sick and not on holidays and as far as I am concerned, they cannot touch my already accrued holidays. This then begs the question, if my company are claiming SSP and are saying I am getting holiday pay, surely they defrauding the government are`nt they?

My holidays were booked in advance. I did not get holiday pay but was getting sick pay. My boss`s attitude is that I was getting paid sick pay so am not entitled to any holidays, yet the company were still claiming SSP from the government.

I have an issue with my employer at the minute that I am in disagreement with them about. Recently I had been off work for nearly 5 months due to an injury which I believe I sustained at work. When I returned to work I enquired as to how many holidays I had left from my entitlement as in my contract I will lose 2 days per each full calender month of absence. I believe I should have lost 8, ie. 4 full months absent times 2 days per month equals 8 days holiday entitlement lost. Yet when I asked I was told I would lose 20. When I asked why I knew the reason for the first 8 but was told the other 12 was because I had taken a holiday during my sickness. My argument is that yes I did go holiday while I was sick, but this holiday was booked well in advance of my absence from work due to sickness and was not taken purely because I was off sick. Secondly my doctor certified me as being unable to work not and being unable to got on holiday and lastly does my employer legally have the right to take holidays from me when I am absent due to illness. Any advice is much appreciated and pointers in any direction for information on my rights would be most welcome. Thanks