Using Vacation hours to pay for insurance

tafowl

I work for a company that is a seasonal business. During the spring and summer months we do not have an abundance of work so we allow some of our regular, full-time employees to take a voluntary layoff. These employees were allowed to keep all of their regular benefits, i.e. insurance, vacation, etc. because they will all be called back to work later this year. The plant manager made a spur of the moment decision and did not think through all of the ramifications of this. Most of these employees have four weeks vacation and they are only allowed to take this vacation from February 15th until October 1st. Because he is worried that they will all come back and then take their vacations, the plant manager has decided that they can use their remaining vacation hours to pay for the insurance premiums that they owe the company. Is this legal? Our company policy states that all vaction hours count against overtime, so how do we pay them without it going against overtime.