The Trades Union Congress has criticised a proposal to scrap the May Day bank holiday in favour of an alternative bank holiday in the autumn.

Tourism minister John Penrose wants a public consultation on whether to have a replacement holiday in October.

But TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said workers and businesses have "built their schedules around" established bank holidays.

MPs will hear a White Paper on the proposal by the end of the month.

The possibility of a public consultation is expected to be one of the proposals in the forthcoming Tourism Strategy.

May Day is celebrated in many countries, where it is also known as International Workers' Day, when celebrations and demonstrations are organised by unions and other groups.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the aim of any alteration to the bank holiday schedule would be to help the tourism industry.

The DCMS said any new bank holiday could possibly be held in October, as part of the autumn half-term holiday and could be called "UK Day" or "Trafalgar Day".

And it stressed that there will be an extra bank holiday this year for the Royal wedding, and also next year for the Diamond Jubilee, so no change would be likely to happen before 2013.

But Mr Barber called on the the government to abandon its proposals.

"There is strong support for an extra public holiday as the UK has the stingiest allocation in Europe," he said.

"But the last thing we need is for the government to mess around with established bank holidays that workers and businesses have built their schedules around.

"A few Tory backwoodsmen have a bee in their bonnet about the May Day bank holiday because of its association with international labour day. In fact May Day is a traditional British celebration dating back to the 4th Century.

"The government would do well to rise above this backbench grudge, put the needs of employers and their staff first, and scrap the idea altogether."

Mr Penrose said that while tourism businesses in the UK are "brilliant at providing a quality experience for their customers all year round" the government should also help them.

"An autumn bank holiday, possibly to be branded as a new 'UK Day', would not only help the industry, but also give us all a new focus for celebrating the best of what this country does, and all the things that make us a world-class nation," he said.

"But before we try to take this further, it's really important that everyone has a chance to consider it properly.

"If people decide they'd rather hang on to the May Day holiday, then so be it, but we ought to consider the options in a sensible way before the country reaches a collective decision.

"A national conversation on the issue would give everyone the chance to have their say. It's the Big Society in action."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12372625

Am I missing something here, or is this a proposal to fcuk about with the established order under some notion of increased tourism for one day?

I think there are more important things to be working on.

+1, my cynical mind thinks it's more of a distraction for the public than anything else...

Probably a good idea actually to move one of the bank holidays in August rather than the one in May. Either way, objecting to it on the grounds that people have planned their lives around bank holidays is cobblers. I suppose some people might have booked their holidays to take advantage of them this year, so just announce the change will come in in 2012 instead. I think it'd be hard to argue the majority of the working population plan their lives years in advance. It's just a knee-jerk objection to change.

Objection against change for the sake of it will probably be the major reason, but for me I would prefer a bank holiday which had more daylight, so late spring is better than mid autumn. However if it had to be moved then calling it Trafalgar day would be great. Take that Spain and France.

People make use of the public holidays to maximise the benefit of their own holiday time. Loads will use 4 days of their holiday entitlement to get as much time away between working. The impact will just mean people taking breaks around the new public holidays and do companies really want staff leaving to go on holiday in the run up to Christmas?

October is not the run up to xmas.

Any companies planning xmas at this point will have been doing so since for many months anyway.

As I say, bring it in in 2012. Any business that can't cope with what holidays their staff take 18 months from now probably won't be in business 18 months from now anyway. Most businesses don't even allow staff to book leave more than year in advance.

It makes no difference to me, but the May 1st holiday has been popular for such a long time. There has to be a better solution.

Wrong way round - there are two Bank Holidays in May, with only one in August. Bank holidays can help break up the monotony of work. I think the one on the last Monday of May should be moved to October, retaining the other two.

Or better still, add more Bank Holidays.

As it stands, January, April, May, August, and December are the only months with BHs.

+1, especially for adding one or more bank holidays. The UK has fewer public holidays than many other countries in the EU.
At work we get a list of public holidays in the UK, US, Japan, China and Korea (I think) and aside from the US the UK has the lowest number of holidays.

Be careful with international bank holidays... Here in Germany, it looks like we get a lot of them, but a) many are specific to certain States and no State celebrates all of those that are for "Germany" and b) unlike the UK, we don't "push" our bank holidays to fit the working week.

If May Day, Christmas etc. fall on a Sunday, that is you holiday day, it doesn't get pushed to the next working day, or additional free days. in 2010, Christmas fell on a Saturday and Boxing Day on a Sunday, that meant back to work on Monday. The same applied for New Year, it was a Saturday, so back to work on Monday. (It works the other way as well, if a bank holiday falls on a Wednesday, for example, that is the free day.)

Easter is the only exception to this rule, as it must always be a Friday and a Monday.

As to moving May Day: What is with all the May Day parades? And tourism, surely it is better to have May Day when other countries also have a bank holiday and we have a spectacle that people can come and see (although most countries have their own celebrations).

Having an extra bank holiday, when other countries don't have one, doesn't make sense in a bid to increase tourism.

And there are a lot of jobs, where bank holidays are irrelevant anyway. My partner works in a nursing home, she has to work every second weekend and bank holidays are normal working days, no extra time. If she books a holiday, she has to take everything into account, including using holiday up for bank holidays or weekends, if she was planned in to work on those days...

That is a good ponit Dave. It's nice to go to places but it's better if there are locals around giving it some life.

Why on earth are they wasting their time with this? There was talk of an extra bank holiday, not swapping one.

This "government" is full of useless ideas and they just seem to be fannying about rather than doing anything constructive.

I think it's a great idea, I've always said we have too many bank holidays all bunched up. The tuc are just pissed cos it's labour day.

You'd be surprised how many British 'tourist destinations' shut on bank holidays.