Question for CBG

[justathought]

Quick question for MA employees...

For hourly (non-exempt) employees... is it based on state law or company policy how vacation/sick time are paid out upon termination? If it's law, could you point me in a direction?

I only ask because in another post you refer to "earned" time as wages which leads me to the next thought...

At my last job, the vacation time and sick time were "pooled" into "paid time off" and the lump sum was received upon termination, whereas my current employer splits them into vacation *and* sick and only the vacation is paid out although both are 'earned' on a monthly basis. The accrued sick time is relinquished.

Please clarify?

Thanks a ton!!


Ps. Same type of employee... If someone should come in on a day off, can the company offer "comp time" in lieu of hours worked? Thank you bunches!!

 

[cbg]

What both your employers did/are doing is/are correct. If the employer has a PTO plan, unless some of it is specifically designated as vacation (which pretty much eliminates the value of a PTO plan at all) all of it must be paid out upon termination. However, if the company uses vacation/sick time, only the vacation time has to be paid out. MA law does not require the pay out of sick time.

We are talking about state law here in regards to the payout. A company in MA may not have a policy in which an employee loses time that they have already earned. It IS legal to have a policy in which the amount of time you are allowed to earn is capped. By the way, I am using the words "earned" and "accrued" pretty much interchangeably here.

Under Federal law, a private employer may NOT offer comp time to a non-exempt employee unless the comp time is taken in the same week as the extra hours were earned. This is true even if the employee would prefer the comp time. Don't ask me why. An employer may, if they so choose, offer comp time to an exempt employee but they are not obligated to do so.

If you need the exact references I can probably dig them up.

 

[justathought]

Thanks for the quick response!!

I guess the part that confuses me is that the sick time is "earned" which leads me to feel it should be paid out... but then is contradicted by not being law to do so. ?!? I guess it's good to know come that fateful day... It's okay, that was a random thought.

But the part about the comp time is killing me!!

I came in over a period of time for which my employer was closed. I even had *big* people in the company approve it for me so we were under the mutual understanding that I was to receive a check for actual hours worked.

Then payday rolled around and they said the union contract does not allow for time to be paid out while the employer was closed (because everyone gets the time off paid-working or not) and I had to deal with it and take the comp hours (I think they said within six months or so.) Had I known, I wouldn't have come in because a) I needed the extra money b) I had all appropriate authorization and c) I never take time off anyways, so the comp time would end up expiring. I dropped it for the time being because I'd rather have a smaller check than none at all!

I was under the impression that the union contract cannot supercede state or federal laws and sections contradicting law are void. This just ate me up because "the union has spoken" and all of my arguments for non-exempt comp time being illegal were laughed at and put aside because the contract is *be all end all*.

So, I guess in a long-winded sort of way, yes... If you know where I can get an idea of where to find this, it would be quite gracious of you!!

 

[cbg]

If there's a union contract in there, it might get more complicated. It is possible that this might change things. I'll get you the web sites tomorrow, but a union contract that is MORE generous than the law allows is okay, so it may be that the comp time is okay in this case. Maybe one of the lawyers can help here - my union experience is almost 20 years back.