Furlough
jds
14 Posts
Due to budget problems, we have decided to do a one-week furlough. We are allowing employees the option of trading five accrued vacation days in lieu of going one week without pay. The employees who choose the furlough option will not work the week of July 4th, and will not get paid for any of those days. The employees who choose the accrued vacation option will work that week (except they won't work on July 4th) and will hand over 5 days of vacation in order to be paid. Any legal problems with this?
Comments
We are looking into it as well. The way we plan to handle it, is offer a one week furlough without pay. We aren't looking at the employee using existing vacation time to account for the furlough. We are looking into more than just one week.
I posted a similar message in the past with no responses. I don't think too many employers know about it.
I think you may have a legal problem with that? If an employee works, you have to pay him or her. Requiring that the employee "turns in" accrued paid time may be blatantly illegal in some states and is certainly contrary to the intent of wage and hour laws in the first place.
>are allowing employees the option of trading five accrued vacation
>days in lieu of going one week without pay. The employees who choose
>the furlough option will not work the week of July 4th, and will not
>get paid for any of those days. The employees who choose the accrued
>vacation option will work that week (except they won't work on July
>4th) and will hand over 5 days of vacation in order to be paid. Any
>legal problems with this?
As an employee, why would I want to work 4 days, be paid but have to give you 5 days of my vacation? Something just doesn't sound right both from a legal and an ethical aspect. Talk about a morale breaker! If you feel you must furlough for a week, why not just have everyone use that as a vacation week, get paid and not have to work. I have known several facilities that shut down and require everyone to take vacation at the same time.
It also sounds to me as if the employer is considering cancelling the July 4th paid holiday, which is also his right to do. If that is the case, he has a right to proclaim that the paid holiday observed in the past is history and if an employee wants pay for that day, he must take a vacation day.
But, if one of the options is to work all week long and trade in one's vacation to finance the payroll that week, that's insane! I have never heard of a situation where an employee both works a day and takes a day of vacation just to get himself paid. That is not creative accounting or proactive management; it's insanity and I would get a group together, take up ten bucks apiece and hand it to an attorney for advice. Get a hungry one.