The Law at Work: May an Employer Delay the Start of Paid Vacation Benefit?
In his The Law at Work column in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Shareholder Dan Eaton addresses whether or not an employer must pay part of the value of vacation time to an employee who quits or is fired before a stated period of time. The San Diego division of the California Court of Appeal recently ruled that an employer is not required to pay out unused vacation time if its policy clearly states an employee earns no vacation time unless the employee remains employed beyond a waiting period.
According to Dan, a clear policy delaying an employee’s eligibility for paid vacation will save an employer from adding vacation pay to a short-term employee’s final paycheck. Such a policy should be drafted carefully, with redundancy preferable to ambiguity. If the policy is not clear about whether an employee must wait before earning vacation time, the labor commissioner ultimately may order the employer to pay a former employee both the value of unpaid vacation time and up to 30 days of penalty wages for improperly withholding the value of that earned compensation upon termination.
Read the full article here.