2m workers failing to take their full holiday allowance
ALMOST two million workers are not receiving their legal holiday entitlement, partly because they do not have enough time to take all their leave, a study suggests.
Research by the TUC indicated that one in 14 employees are missing out on the time they are due to take off.
Unrealistic workloads and employers denying holiday requests or not keeping up to date with the law were the main reasons, said the TUC.Women were more affected than men, while workers in education, health and social care and retail were most likely to be losing out, according to the report.
More workers are taking claims for unpaid holidays to a tribunal since fees were abolished in 2017, said the TUC.
General secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Every worker deserves a break to spend time with friends and family, but millions miss out on the paid leave they are owed.
“British workers put in billions of pounds’ worth of unpaid overtime as it is.
“Employers have no excuse for robbing staff of their leave. The Government must toughen up enforcement to stop bosses cheating working people out of their holidays.”
Previous TUC research revealed employees put in about £32billion worth of unpaid overtime last year.
IT ISN’T very often Cara Delevingne follows the fashion lead of Prince Charles, or that her fellow model Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley takes a leaf out of the style book of Ricky Gervais’s cringeworthy TV character David Brent.
The latest trend, however, has certain old-fashioned ring to it.
Signet rings - once the preserve of noblemen - are back in vogue. Demand is soaring and style bible Vanity Fair has noted their resurgence, especially among young “influencers”, in its August edition.
Former Spice Girl Geri Horner has been sporting one, as has singer Katy Perry, Victoria’s Secret model Candice Swanepoel and Kate Moss.
Gwyneth Paltrow, before she began wearing her wedding ring last year, swapped her engagement ring for a gold signet band engraved with the initials of new husband Brad Falchuk either side of a pair of crossed arrows.
In character as Villanelle in Killing Eve, actress Jodie Comer wore one engraved with the words of Queen Victoria. “The important thing is not what they think of me,” it read, “but what I think of them.”
Indeed, even the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has given signet rings a royal seal of approval.
After all, the rings – traditionally worn on the little finger of the nondominant hand and bearing an engraving of the family crest – were originally used as seals, pressed into wax or clay to authenticate a document and make it legally binding.
If your family had its own coat-ofarms, and a need to seal documents to prevent tampering, it was a sign of wealth and status.
Hardly surprising then that, long after the rings stopped being a legal requirement for the nobility of the Middle Ages, they retained their
acachet as symbols of wealth and sophistication for successful men.
Frank Sinatra liked to wear one, as did Elvis Presley and members of The Beatles. Mobsters, in order to display their wealth and power, loved to show their exclusive “pinkie” bling and mafia-chic was a thing long before present-day rappers began sporting hands laden with gold.
Hollywood has long used the signet ring as a motif for wealth and power. Think Donald Pleasence’s Blofeld baddy in You Only Live Twice, Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Scarface, or James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.
The signet ring, however, never lost its link to its aristocratic past, or its favour among the higher reaches of society.
Martin Phillips
PRINCE Charles is rarely seen without his. He also presented the then Lady Diana Spencer with a signet ring bearing the Prince of Wales’s feathers ahead of their 1981 wedding, and the Duchess of York also sported one from time to time.
It remained popular, too, with the suave, image-conscious man. Colin Firth wore one in the movie A Single Man, and super-cool Robert Pattinson was recently featured wearing one inVanity Fair.
Now iconic women are ringing the changes and getting in on the signet style. The Duchess of Cambridge’s sister Pippa is regularly seen with a gold signet ring on her little finger since the Middleton family was granted its own crest by the College of Arms ahead of Kate’s marriage to