PTO

[isis297]

NY

I started my job 1/13/2022.

In 2023, I had 2 floating holidays, 5 personal/ sick days, and 5 days of vacation. I also accrued NYS paid sick time where I was allowed to use 56 hrs of it and then had something like 15 hours leftover that I was told could be used prior to my anniversary date with a maximum of 56 hours used per year.

I was also told that over the last year, I was accruing my 2nd anniversary vacation time in the background so that on 1/13, I would get 80 hrs vacation time loaded.

Now I'm being told that the policy has changed. I will not get 80 hours uploaded on 1/13. Instead, I will start accruing vacation time and can take up to -40. If I quit before the end of the year, I will owe them time from my final check. I thought I accrued 80 over the past year which should have all been mine. The payroll manager said she told me that because that was the policy in December, but now the policy is different. We got an email. Not a new employee handbook.

They also took away the 5 personal/ sick days and front loaded 56 hours saying that other states weren't getting the state sick time. Honestly, I have no idea what our employees in other states have or don't have. I just know what I had and now I feel like I'm losing PTO.

Can a company do this? Can they just take PTO away? And what happened to the 80 hrs I accrued in the background?

 

[isis297]

Apparently, the vacation time wasn't earned last year. It was front loaded and if you quit, they had to pay the time out even though you hadn't earned it. So now they changed it to you have to accrue it.

 

[Bali Hai Again]

Apparently, the vacation time wasn't earned last year. It was front loaded and if you quit, they had to pay the time out even though you hadn't earned it. So now they changed it to you have to accrue it.

Comment from fellow New Yorker here. I have never worked anywhere that paid vacations could be used before earned. If a new employee wanted vacation before earned it was usually negotiated at the time of employment and unpaid.

 

[cbg]

It is very, very rare for PTO time to be frontloaded. Your description of how it will work in the future, where you accrue it over time, can "borrow" ahead but need to pay back any overages, is FAR more common. I can't remember the last time I worked for an employer that front-loaded PTO. In any state.

In your state, earned but unused vacation time has to be paid out at termination UNLESS there is a written policy that expressly says it will not. NY is not unique in that but they are very much the minority - I can only think of one other state off the top of my head which has that requirement.

NO state requires that personal time be paid out at termination. The same applies to floating holiday. NY law does not even require that personal days or floating holidays be offered.

NY's paid sick time law does not require that unused sick time be paid out at termination unless there is an agreement or written policy that says otherwise.

ALL states allow employers to change their benefits on a go-forward basis as long as the changes do not violate any state or Federal law, The changes you are describing not only do not violate any state or Federal law, but are quite common. So that's the long way of my getting around to saying yes, your employer can do that.

 

[isis297]

I understand about the vacation time, but they are allowed to take away a week of personal time with no specific message about it, change in the handbook where it talks about us getting 5 personal days and then later mentions specifics to working in a paid sick leave jurisdiction as a separate topic?

 

[cbg]

Yes. They are. Since there are no laws that say they can't. At least, in the abstract they can.

Since NY is fussier than most states about written policies, if you really, really want to pursue this and don't mind putting some money out regarding it for what will surely be only a short term extension, you could take your employee handbook to an employment attorney and see if it constitutes a written contract. However, just be aware that even if it is found to be contractual, you're only going to have the added time as long as it takes for the employer to create a new handbook - and then THAT is the policy that will be enforceable.

 

[isis297]

It just seems unfair I can sign a handbook saying I'm accepting a job with certain benefits only to not have any protection. If they want to change it, grandfather the rest of us. The handbook I signed says we all get 5 personal days then goes on to talk about if you live in a paid sick time jurisdiction. It's a benefit that was part of the consideration for taking the job at the pay I did.

They also changed our work week now from Sunday to Saturday instead of Saturday to Friday. We were paid biweekly, but apparently NY changed the law to we have to be paid weekly. We alternate weekends so on the old schedule you might get 38 hrs one week and 42.5 the next. We signed a document saying we were guaranteed 40 hrs min a week. The way it worked was fine but now by splitting the weekend and going weekly, one week will only have 36 hrs which means I have to work an extra 4 hrs in order to get just my 40.

 

[cbg]

I'm not saying it's fair. I'm not saying I agree with changing policies so that employees have less paid time off. (Although I do think that the "accrue as earned" policy works better than the "front loaded" policy.)

I'm saying your employer is not violating any laws.