Paid Time Off

[CdnCarrie]

My wife worked in a Union shop. The section of the labor contract covering vacations just said "vacation time will be dictated by the practices of the employer". Nothing specific listed in over 40 years. The company was sold and they did cut vacation time for some positions by one week. Used to be everyone started with 2 weeks vacation except those who worked in the News Department or Broadcast Operations, the jobs where legal holidays were regular work days. Those people got an extra week vacation in compensation for that. The new owner took that week away for new hires.

Too bad you don’t have labour laws. Sounds horrible .

 

[barkley]

My wife worked in a Union shop. The section of the labor contract covering vacations just said "vacation time will be dictated by the practices of the employer". Nothing specific listed in over 40 years. The company was sold and they did cut vacation time for some positions by one week. Used to be everyone started with 2 weeks vacation except those who worked in the News Department or Broadcast Operations, the jobs where legal holidays were regular work days. Those people got an extra week vacation in compensation for that. The new owner took that week away for new hires.

I was civil service in a management position-but in a management classification that had unionized. we were ineligible for overtime compensation and very rarely were called upon for it but just because we might be-we received an additional 50 hours of paid leave per year (use it or lose it). it was generally the first type of leave anyone in that classification used for any purpose each year (and why not? sick accrued, vacation accrued to an extent-that 50 hours plus the additional all employee 24 hours of paid floating holiday time we got that was also use it or lose it could cover almost 2 full weeks off without touching a minute of your vacation or sick leave).

 

[tvguy]

Too bad you don’t have labour laws. Sounds horrible .

LOL. U.S. Corporations HATE California Labor Laws. I worked for several national corporations, where the employee handbook for us, as the only California location, included an appendix for things that did not apply to us. Or in some cases, where corporate policy was a felony in California
Things like:
1) If you get vacation, it can't be taken away. You have to be allowed to use it or be paid for it.
2) Salaried employees have to be paid a base pay at least $68,640 a year. If their wage is lower than that, you HAVE to be an hourly employee, and HAVE to be paid overtime.
3) Employees HAVE to get an unpaid meal break. And that meal break HAS to happen no sooner than 3 hours after the start of your shift, and no later than 5 hours after. No tacking onto the beginning or end of your shift. If you do not get your meal break in that time, they have to pay you a penalty equal to one hour's pay, plus overtime pay for the length of your meal break. I have to admit I hated that, because I worked 8 straight without a meal break for the first 30 years of my working lift by choice. The law prohibits an employee from waiving a meal break

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Wow, that is really crappy of his employer, I wonder if that's even legal. Our changed in 2014 for new hires where they had a tiered system based on how long you were there, but people employed prior to 2014 were grandfathered in.

You would think, right? It's our county government too.

 

[disneychrista]

LOL. U.S. Corporations HATE California Labor Laws. I worked for several national corporations, where the employee handbook for us, as the only California location, included an appendix for things that did not apply to us. Or in some cases, where corporate policy was a felony in California
Things like:
1) If you get vacation, it can't be taken away. You have to be allowed to use it or be paid for it.
2) Salaried employees have to be paid a base pay at least $68,640 a year. If their wage is lower than that, you HAVE to be an hourly employee, and HAVE to be paid overtime.
3) Employees HAVE to get an unpaid meal break. And that meal break HAS to happen no sooner than 3 hours after the start of your shift, and no later than 5 hours after. No tacking onto the beginning or end of your shift. If you do not get your meal break in that time, they have to pay you a penalty equal to one hour's pay, plus overtime pay for the length of your meal break. I have to admit I hated that, because I worked 8 straight without a meal break for the first 30 years of my working lift by choice. The law prohibits an employee from waiving a meal break

2. They can still be paid a salary but they are not exempt from OT and would need to be paid OT for any time work over 8 hours per day or 40 hours in a single work week. Salary is just a method of payment.

3. There are exemptions that allow by mutual written agreement to an on duty PAID lunch break.

 

[bcla]

I'm in California and the law here is you can NEVER lose vacation or PTO time. Your employer had to either let you carry it over, take it off or pay you for it. Never had an employer willing to buy back vacation. You could have up to 1.5 times your annual accrual on the books, so six weeks. On paper the policy was they could assign you time off if you had too much time on the books, but never saw that actually happen. Sick time, was use it or lose it.

There can be a max accrual though. I remember hitting it a few times when my manager just kept on telling me that it was important that I come in for an important project. I got direct deposit and didn't carefully monitor my pay stubs. Then one day I looked at it, and found that it maxed out at 200 hours, sort of. For every pay period after maxing out, it went to 200.1, then 200.2. So I got 10 minutes. And there was no way to get it back. And it got accrued fairly quickly as I had 6 weeks PTO per year (long story). It was also an informal sick time off, although I think there was a point where California law required 5 days per calendar year separate from PTO.

I've seen all sorts of things. Like standard week between Christmas and New Year's Day taken off to take PTO off the books more or less. A lot of people would take it off anyways. I do remember working a contract job where I was paid hourly, and I asked if I could come in anyways with little to do since I needed the pay. I think I only took Christmas and NYD off. That wasn't a problem, even though it was like a ghost town in the office. I might have also come in there on holidays to get paid, although I'd generally have something to do.

Some places I've worked it was all federal holidays paid days off, separate from PTO. Some were paid holidays off used a PTO day, but certain holidays had PTO applied unless the employee requested working that day. Even stuff like Columbus Day.

 

[Minnesota!]

We are given our full allotted PTO on Jan 1 each year. You can use it all at once, spend it throughout the year, etc. you don't have to wait for accrual or anything. You can carry over 40 hours each year.

I usually end the year carrying over 20 or so? 22 this year.

I get 280 hours each Jan 1. Then we have Volunteer PTO (if you go volunteer in the community, it's paid time off), Sick and Safe Time, and a few other random PTO banks.

 

[kdonnel]

Odd. Law here in all provinces that employees get minimum 2 weeks vacation a year. In our province a minimum of 3 weeks after 5 years.
Labour law.
https://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/standards/doc,vacations,factsheet.html

The US is not Canada.

US laws tend to favor businesses over employees. Some states much more than others.

 

[tvguy]

There can be a max accrual though. I remember hitting it a few times when my manager just kept on telling me that it was important that I come in for an important project. I got direct deposit and didn't carefully monitor my pay stubs. Then one day I looked at it, and found that it maxed out at 200 hours, sort of. For every pay period after maxing out, it went to 200.1, then 200.2. So I got 10 minutes. And there was no way to get it back. And it got accrued fairly quickly as I had 6 weeks PTO per year (long story). It was also an informal sick time off, although I think there was a point where California law required 5 days per calendar year separate from PTO.

I've seen all sorts of things. Like standard week between Christmas and New Year's Day taken off to take PTO off the books more or less. A lot of people would take it off anyways. I do remember working a contract job where I was paid hourly, and I asked if I could come in anyways with little to do since I needed the pay. I think I only took Christmas and NYD off. That wasn't a problem, even though it was like a ghost town in the office. I might have also come in there on holidays to get paid, although I'd generally have something to do.

Some places I've worked it was all federal holidays paid days off, separate from PTO. Some were paid holidays off used a PTO day, but certain holidays had PTO applied unless the employee requested working that day. Even stuff like Columbus Day.

Absolutely there can be a max on the books. It was 1.5 times your annual vacation allowance at my last employer. So I could have 240 hours when we still got vacation time. The last year we had vacation time, I was told by my boss that I HAD to take an additional week off before the end of the year. I already had Christmas week off, so I ended up with New Years week off also. Long story short, they didn't have the staff to cover for me, and it prompted a complaint to HR. HR called my boss in and said that actually, I just had to take that week before the end of the first quarter of the year. When the switched to PTO however, the cap went away. Not sure if that was the law or just a corporate decision.

 

[barkley]

LOL. U.S. Corporations HATE California Labor Laws. I worked for several national corporations, where the employee handbook for us, as the only California location, included an appendix for things that did not apply to us. Or in some cases, where corporate policy was a felony in California
Things like:
1) If you get vacation, it can't be taken away. You have to be allowed to use it or be paid for it.
2) Salaried employees have to be paid a base pay at least $68,640 a year. If their wage is lower than that, you HAVE to be an hourly employee, and HAVE to be paid overtime.
3) Employees HAVE to get an unpaid meal break. And that meal break HAS to happen no sooner than 3 hours after the start of your shift, and no later than 5 hours after. No tacking onto the beginning or end of your shift. If you do not get your meal break in that time, they have to pay you a penalty equal to one hour's pay, plus overtime pay for the length of your meal break. I have to admit I hated that, because I worked 8 straight without a meal break for the first 30 years of my working lift by choice. The law prohibits an employee from waiving a meal break

2. They can still be paid a salary but they are not exempt from OT and would need to be paid OT for any time work over 8 hours per day or 40 hours in a single work week. Salary is just a method of payment.

3. There are exemptions that allow by mutual written agreement to an on duty PAID lunch break.

I don't know if it's still the same but California used to have weird exemptions for some categories of jobs in certain industries. I remember when I worked in the tourism industry-there were different salary/OT laws governing almost identical salaried jobs b/c one was considered to be in a department that was 'traditionally regarded' as a m-f/9-5 buisness operation while the other's department was 'hospitality' which was understood to extend 24/7.

 

[atthebeachclub]

I get nearly 33 days of PTO per year. That includes short term illness (technically a separate thing, but the PTO and short term illness is an overlapping qty). This is separate from both short term and long term disability, and also separate from the state run short term illness/family leave.

I don’t typically take the full 33 days. I try to take 5 days off per season, plus a smattering of a few extra days here and there. The rest I roll over (where it increases in value as my pay increases) as a sort of “emergency fund” as it would get paid out if I left, or sometimes I will sell some to fund vacation.

 

[disneychrista]

I don't know if it's still the same but California used to have weird exemptions for some categories of jobs in certain industries. I remember when I worked in the tourism industry-there were different salary/OT laws governing almost identical salaried jobs b/c one was considered to be in a department that was 'traditionally regarded' as a m-f/9-5 buisness operation while the other's department was 'hospitality' which was understood to extend 24/7.

There are definitely industry specific rules.

 

[AZMermaid]

Teacher here. We get 13 days to use however we want- sick, personal, vacation. Most years if we want to maintain enrollment in the sick bank, we need to donate a day. So really, I get 12. I rarely use them all. They do roll over- I have like 30 days in the bank. It does accrue as the year goes but I don’t really pay attention to that anymore. We might get 5 from the start and then the accruing starts. We do get paid out for the days upon retirement but at like a 30% rate. My retired former coworkers have all told me “use your days. It’s not worth it.” I am actually using them all this year (the 12- not all 30 haha) because I’m taking 3 in a row for the WDW marathon in a few weeks. But in 20 years, it’s only the second time I’ve taken 3 (or more) in a row. I also have a competitive dancer and come spring I always have to miss a few for her stuff. Plus they dance at Disneyland every other year and this is the year, so that’s a day too. But we generally do our family travel the last week of July due to my schedule, her schedule and my swimmer’s schedule. So I don’t miss work for that.

 

[tvguy]

There are definitely industry specific rules.

Absolutely. I just remember when the TV station I was working at hired an HR person for first time. Someone who knew all the labor laws, but had zero experience with TV. Some of the realities of the job border on unsafe working or hostile conditions. She did a great job of working to learn what our jobs required. She came in an observed every shift. The 3 am shift. The 3 pm shift. The Weekend shift and soon realized very few people at a TV station work 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday.

 

[barkley]

You would think, right? It's our county government too.

county government can be the craziest! one we deal with as retirees has 38 different variations of just 3 health insurance plans (for the last of those that qualify as retirees b/c that's not a benefit offered to new hires in probably 15 years). why 38? b/c what version you get/what you pay vs. county share is dependant on your-hire date, classification at retirement, union you were last in, if you were part of a group lawsuit of retirees vs. that county....and that's for you to navigate after you deal with the actual retirement process-13 different types and tiers and depending on when you hired/when new tiers were created you can be covered for different parts of your career under different categories. it's no wonder the retirement board encourages people to do an 'initial' one on one consultation 5 YEARS before your planned retirement

 

[ronandannette]

Odd. Law here in all provinces that employees get minimum 2 weeks vacation a year. In our province a minimum of 3 weeks after 5 years.
Labour law.
https://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/standards/doc,vacations,factsheet.html

You're public-sector, right? How is the vacation and sick time handled?