What are my rights to OT and the use of my vacation time?
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What are my rights to OT and the use of my vacation time?
My company recently changed our policy on employees working more than 40 hours including one or more days of vacation. This is a policy for both hourly employees and salaried. So if I work 30 hours by Wednesday and take Thursday and Friday off, I am required to take 8 hours of vacation for each of
those days, giving me a total of 46 hours charged for the week. Those extra 6 hours aren’t charged as overtime. Can they force me to take 16 hours of vacation if it puts me over 40 hours for the week, or should we be allowed to only charge 10 hours over the 2 days to keep me at 40?
Asked on April 11, 2017 under Employment Labor Law, Florida
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 7 years ago | Contributor
1) A company can require that if you use vacation to miss a day of work, that you have to use 8 hours (e.g. a day's worth) of vacation time for that. Companies have great discretion in setting (and changing, revising, etc.) vacation policy.
2) It doesn't matter if using the vacation time puts you over 40 hours for the week: there is no law restricting vacation use to 40 hours or less per week.
3) Vacation pay is not included in overtime calculations (for that matter, holiday pay and sick pay is not included for overtime, either); therefore, in your example, you would only be paid base pay for the 46 hours, not any overtime.
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