SCROOGE bosses will send 3,000 Yorkshire workers home on Christmas Day without holiday pay, said a survey.

Figures from the TUC showed that about 68,000 in the region have to work on Christmas Day.

They include people working in hospitals, care homes, hotels and restaurants and the manufacturing, transport and building industries.

But about 3,000 get no bonus from their bosses for turning out on Christmas Day.

Nationally, the TUC said that 3m people worked on Christmas Day. Of those, 35,000 would get nothing extra for their trouble.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The UK is the only country in Europe where employees don't have the right to holiday pay if they take bank holidays off.

"It is also the only country where companies are able to include bank holidays in the 20 days' annual leave their staff are entitled to by law."

The TUC is urging the European Commission to tackle UK bank holiday working and pay arrangements in its current review of the working time rules.

It is demanding a legal right to holiday pay for all UK workers and a choice between being paid double time or normal time plus a paid day's holiday for people working on a bank holiday.

It also wants a legal right to at least four weeks paid leave plus bank holidays for UK workers.

The TUC wants the Government to introduce three new bank holidays to bring the UK up to the European average.

Mr Barber said: "It's about time the season's grafters got paid more for working over the Christmas holidays."