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Section 54: Complaints to employment tribunals.

Employment Rights Act 1996 · 1996 c. 18View on legislation.gov.uk

Part VI: Time off work

An employee may present a complaint to an employment tribunal that his employer—

has unreasonably refused to permit him to take time off as required by section 52, or
has failed to pay the whole or any part of any amount to which the employee is entitled under section 53(1) or (4).

An employment tribunal shall not consider a complaint under this section unless it is presented—

before the end of the period of three months beginning with the date on which it is alleged that the time off should have been permitted, or
within such further period as the tribunal considers reasonable in a case where it is satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the complaint to be presented before the end of that period of three months.

Section 207B (extension of time limits to facilitate conciliation before institution of proceedings) applies for the purposes of subsection (2)(a).

Where an employment tribunal finds a complaint under this section well-founded, the tribunal shall—

make a declaration to that effect, and
order the employer to pay to the employee the amount which it finds due to him.

The amount which may be ordered by a tribunal to be paid by an employer under subsection (3) (or, where the employer is liable to pay remuneration under section 53, the aggregate of that amount and the amount of that liability) shall not exceed, in respect of the notice period of any employee, forty per cent. of a week's pay of that employee.

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This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.