Holiday accrual for colf and badanti

Holidays for colf (domestic workers) and badanti (care assistants) in Italy are governed by the national collective agreement.

How colf and badanti accrue holidays

Article 17 of the collective agreement (Contratto Collettivo) provides that domestic workers (lavoratori domestici) accrue 26 days of holiday a year, at least 2 weeks of which must be taken during the year and the rest within the 18 months following the year of accrual, normally between June and September.

This rule needs interpreting for part-time workers: if the working time is not spread from Monday to Saturday but, for example, over just one or two days a week, a part-time worker also accrues 26 working days, but their value is reduced proportionally.

This follows from the wording of the collective agreement itself, which states that “the daily wage is calculated as 1/26 of the monthly wage”.

Do holidays accrue during absences?

The twenty-six days of holiday accrue in 12 monthly instalments, and a month counts towards an instalment if it contains at least 15 calendar days of active employment.

The employment relationship counts as active even if there are days of unpaid absence. A holiday instalment does not accrue only if the employment relationship is suspended for a leave of absence (aspettativa) or if the month of hiring or termination contains fewer than 15 calendar days of active employment.

How should a colf’s holidays be expressed?

If the domestic worker works full time from Monday to Saturday, the 26 days of holiday correspond to 4 full weeks of holiday plus another 2 days (4 weeks of 6 days + 2 days).

If the worker works only a few days a week, they are still entitled to 26 days of holiday a year, but every day from Monday to Saturday must be counted when calculating holidays, even if, for example, they work only one day a week.

For workers who work only a few days a week, it is advisable to express holidays in hours.

When holidays are expressed in hours, you count the working hours that fall within the 26 days of holiday provided for by the rules. To work out how many hours of holiday a worker is entitled to on their schedule, the calculation is:

weekly working hours × 4.3334 weeks.

If holidays are expressed in hours, the code FE should be entered only on working days, not across the whole week from Monday to Saturday.

How are holidays paid?

If holidays are expressed in days (26ths, 26simi), each day of holiday is paid at 1/26 of the monthly wage.

A live-in worker is also entitled during the holiday to an allowance in lieu of board and lodging: it is due because the worker, spending the holiday away from the workplace, cannot receive board and lodging in kind, so they are paid in cash through this allowance.

There is a practical problem with the amount to be paid when a single day of holiday is requested, especially under part-time contracts: the worker will in fact receive less than their average monthly pay, given the way the agreement sets the daily wage at 1/26.

For example:

a part-time schedule of 12 hours a week, arranged as follows:

• Monday: 4 hours
• Tuesday: 4 hours
• Wednesday: 4 hours

For one day of holiday to be paid at 1/26 of the monthly wage, the whole working week from Monday to Saturday must be taken into account, even though Thursday to Saturday are not working days for this worker.

And if the worker asks to be absent only on Monday and Wednesday, how many days of holiday should be entered?

These questions are answered by choosing to calculate holidays in hours rather than days, counting only the days, or even half-days, actually requested.

If holidays are expressed in hours, a day of holiday is paid the same as a working day, and if the worker requests holiday on a day that is not a working day under the contract, they receive no pay for it.

Since many users forget to mark holidays on days they do not work, the programme calculates holidays in days, counting only the days actually worked each week and paying (for days of holiday) according to the hours worked on that day. This simplifies administration while keeping pay in line with the CCNL’s 26ths rule.

The three different ways of expressing a colf’s holidays in detail

Equivalence of the holiday systems allowed for a colf

Although the collective agreement states holiday accrual in days, choosing to express holidays in days (26ths), in hours or in actual days makes no difference at all: the three systems are equivalent, and here is the proof:

Imagine a colf who works Monday to Friday, 25 hours a week, at an hourly rate of €5.11.

If holidays accrue in hours, the monthly instalment will be: 25 × 4.3334 (weeks per month) ÷ 12 = 9.0279 hours per month, which × €5.11 = €46.13.

If holidays accrue in days, the monthly instalment will be: 5 working days × 4.3334 ÷ 12 = 1.8056, and each day is paid according to the hours worked that day, on average 5 hours, so = 1.8056 × 5 hours × €5.11 = €46.13.

If holidays accrue in days (26ths), the monthly instalment will be: 26 ÷ 12 = 2.1667, but each day of holiday is paid at (25 hours a week × 4.3334 weeks ÷ 26 days = 4.1667 hours), so 2.16 × 4.16730 × 5.11 = €46.13.

In all three cases the pay for the holidays accrued in the month remains the same.