Refusal of leave

Employers should not refuse your leave due to strike action. Refusing leave would be self-defeating for employers as any consultant not taking leave would still be entitled to strike. It would also worsen employment relations. 

Both employers and consultants as employees must make every effort to work together to ensure that consultants are able to take the full annual leave entitlement. Rejecting requests to take annual leave out of hand fundamentally undermines this process.    

Leave cancellation

If you have booked leave that coincides with a day of industrial action, you should still be able to take it. As above, there is no value to an employer in cancelling planned leave as the consultant would be entitled to take strike action anyway. Indeed, it would be counterproductive as such action would be actively harmful to employment relations. 

Study leave

We recognise the importance of study leave. As such, we recommend rescheduling study time where possible to a period when it is not impacted by industrial action and when you can better use it as it is meant to be used.