Unused Vacation

[testedmonkey]

What is the name of your state? CA

My friend gave her two week notice last Friday. Today, her boss said she can go ahead and leave right now. No biggie, she wanted to go. They only paid her through the end of today, which is also fine.

The problem is, they're refusing to pay her out her vacation time. Up until I quit about a month ago, I handled vacation issues and she had at least 20 hours accrued on the day I left. They paid her out 2 hours, claiming that her vacation time from last year did not roll over.

Company policy, verbatim, is:
Vacation time will accrue for full-time, permanent employees, at .41 a month. If an employee needs to take time off before completing one year of service, whether this is paid will be solely up to the principal. Vacation cannot be carried over the following year. Vacation should be planned and used around the least busy period. Requisition form to be approved.

This is from the "new" company handbook that they had her sign after I left. She emailed me a copy when they had her sign it, so I could get a giggle out of all the errors. To me, it doesn't make sense... if you can't take vacation time before one year, but it doesn't carry over, how can you ever take it? The company does not provide employees with any vacation accrual statements, either. I was the only person who ever tracked it and I gave a master statement to the bookkeeper every pay period with the payroll info. The bookkeeper (also the owner's wife and Organizational Manager) never said "oh, this isn't how we track vacation time." She always paid out departing employees according to those master statements.

So, before I have her call the Dept. of Labor about getting the rest of her vacation time paid out, is she entitled to it? Does the employee manual make it so she loses the un-used vacation time?

 

[cbg]

Is your friend also in CA? If not, what state is she in?

 

[testedmonkey]

Yes

Yes, we're both in CA. Sorry about that.

 

[cbg]

To the best of my knowledge, there are NO circumstances under which an employer can withhold the payment of earned but unused vacation time in CA. Is the company by any chance based in another state? (It won't change the answer - I'm just curious.)

By all means have her call the DOL. I can speak to personal experience when I say that the DOL will be all over her employer's back.

 

[cbg]

BTW, I haven't forgotten that I promised you some info that I haven't supplied yet. Be patient please - I'm still working on it.

 

[testedmonkey]

Thanks!

The company is based in CA, only has one office.

I'll have her call the DOL. Being shorted that time really put her in a bind. Thanks for your help.

I'm still waiting to here on my business loan, so I don't need that info ASAP. I appreciate all your help. You rock!

 

[cbg]

Then the company had better get up to speed on CA law real quick.

I had an employee who (wrongly) complained to the DOL that we hadn't paid her vacation time. We could prove in about three different directions that we had, and we sent copies of payroll ledgers, correspondence, memos showing precisely how the time was calculated, copies of cancelled checks - and the only thing we got back was, Pay the employee or else.

It wasn't until the employee admitted that she lied, that they backed off, and even then we got the impression that they thought we'd gotten away with something they couldn't prove.

If she'd stuck to her story, we'd have been in serious trouble over time we'd already paid.

I can't imagine the DOL will let the employer get away with this.