Different Benefits for employees in same department with same title

[sloyd]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Washington

I work for a company that was bought out and merged with an existing company. The company that bought us out is a large publicly traded company with 12,000 employees. The company that bought us out gave their employees 2 weeks vacation and 5 personal days and 6 sick days. The company that got bought out gave us 2 weeks vacation and 3 sick days.

Now we all work in the same office in the same department, we all have the same title of machine tech. 3 years later they still get 5 personal days and 6 sick days, we still get NO personal days and 3 sick days. Is this legal?

 

[cbg]

Yep. Sure is.

There is no requirement that all employees - even all employees in the same job with the same title - receive the same benefits. The only qualifier is that any differences cannot be based in a characteristic protected by law. Which legacy company you worked for is not a characteristic protected by law.

I've seen it take as long as two years or more before the benefits for the two legacy companies during a merger were smoothed out and equalized.

 

[FlyingRon]

While things like retirement plans are put on a definite time frame by law after a merger (one year), there is never any obligation to reconcile other benefits. In fact, they're free to offer different leave schedules to people (other than in the cases mentioned of protected classes). We frequently to entice people from other jobs offer them benefits in line with what they were getting (specifically vacation days) rather than what the official policy is.

 

[Stephen1]

In fact, they're free to offer different leave schedules to people (other than in the cases mentioned of protected classes). We frequently to entice people from other jobs offer them benefits in line with what they were getting (specifically vacation days) rather than what the official policy is.

This action of different benefits for similar employees including benefits contrary to the official policy drives my wife, a bookkeeper, crazy as she has to track and apply these differences. John is on probation for 6 months and earns no leave during that time; Bob is on probation for 3 months and does earn leave during that time; etc. And as we approach Thanksgiving think about differences in who gets holiday pay and who doesn't. Yes, companies actually do this.

 

[cbg]

Doesn't thrill the Benefits folk, either.