With the bank holiday weekend coming up, I’ve been wondering when the right to holidays first started. I know that legislation on working hours has resulted in a fairly dramatic decline in working hours for a lot of people since the early days of the industrial revolution. Then, shifts of 12-14 hours six days a week were the norm for men, women and children working in factories. It was even more intense for domestic workers, where the working day extended from 6am to 10pm! But what about holidays?
I'm no historian, but this site by Dr Sundari Anitha and Professor Ruth Pearson has a wealth of information on working and rights. Here’s what they say:
The Bank Holiday Act of 1871 gave workers in Scotland 3 extra days paid leave (in addition to Christmas and Good Friday) and 4 days in England and Wales.
It was only in the late 1930s that we got the right to one week of paid holiday a year!
Years of negotiations and debate in the EU resulted in a Working Time Directive in 1993 that specified 4 weeks paid leave – but the UK only implemented it in 1998.
So now full time workers have the right to a minimum of 28 days paid leave (including 8 public holidays).
I do love my holidays and I must admit I find it quite hard to imagine having only six days paid leave a year like they did just 150 years ago. For me, this issue shows parallels with the current focus on developing well-being at work: perhaps one day it will be just as hard for workers to imagine their well-being not being taken seriously as it is for me to imagine having no paid holidays!