In relation to the Pereda case, is it correct that it only applies in the public sector and can employees redesignate contractual leave as sick leave or is it limited to 28 days?

We covered the Pereda case in last September’s First Tuesday questions. By way of recap, Pereda v Movilidad was a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case where the court held that workers who fall ill during a fixed shut-down period are able to insist on having their leave reclassified as sick leave and their annual leave reinstated to be taken at an alternative time.

As this is an ECJ case it applies, strictly speaking, only to public sector workers. Private sector employers may therefore argue that the ruling in Pereda does not apply to them. However, given the House of Lord’s (now the Supreme Court) endorsement of the Stringer decision and the recent GB Employment Tribunal decision in Shah