this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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Do some people actually get these messages? It sounds almost illegal. I get emails from management moaning at me for not using my annual leave and reminding me to take them before they reset.
Had a boss that refused to give me full time cause that would cost company more money, but would harass me if I ever called out. Would remind him that he refused to make me full time and didn't give me a raise that year so I sure as hell wasn't driving through a blizzard to come to work a night when I hadn't been scheduled until 15 minutes before he called.
I’ve had companies write clauses in their employee manual which states you must apply and get approval for using your paid vacation days a month in advance. When you sign the contract, you agree to these rules.
The thing is, where I live, there is no requirement to receive approval, and you really only need to give one day of notice (which has precedent in court). The use of these days off if the employee’s legal right.
The really shitty thing is that companies can legally write illegal clauses in their contracts, they just can’t enforce them. However, if an employee is young and doesn’t know their rights, they will just follow the rules blindly (I know I did).
Also, leave only accumulated for two years here, so you have to use it or lose it.
So the moral of the story is to educate yourself on your local labor laws.
In the US there's basically no legal requirements for paid leave so there's also little to no protection for it
land of the free (for corporations)
Yes, yes we do. I've recieved them personally
Sometimes managers do guilt trip.
Shitty manager: "Oh you're taking a few days off to go to a funeral? Now Sarah has to work overtime... :-("
A dumb employee would then try to reduce your PTO time to make it work, because they're too stupid to realize that it's the manager's responsibility, not theirs.
Oh, and the manager is paid significantly more than them.
Your leave resets? That sounds illegal.
Use it or lose it is very common, even in (US) government employment.
US having laws that permit wage theft? Colour me entirely unsurprised.
Vacation time is not the same as hourly wage.
Where I live, failing to give people their legally-mandated annual leave would be no different to failing to pay them their salary. If they resign or are let go, you have to pay out their annual leave (one day of annual leave = one day of extra pay).
They can reasonably instruct you to use your leave if it's building up too much (but what's "reasonable" or "too much" are not specifically legally defined), but they cannot just take it away. Annual leave is literally part of your legal entitlements.
That's cool, and I'd love to see it. "wage" means hourly payment for time worked. Anything else is a benefit or whatever - but not wage. Wage theft is not getting paid wages due.
I'm not going to deny that that might be true in some US states' laws. But it is not true morally or philosophically. From the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on wage theft:
Later in the same paragraph, it includes as an example:
It is pretty uncontroversial that not paying overtime bonus rates is wage theft, and that article goes to great lengths to describe how misclassification (e.g. classing someone as a contractor when they are in fact a direct employee) is wage theft not just philosophically, but at times in the US legally.
Here in Australia, a classic example of wage theft that we hear about companies getting fined for a lot is failure to pay superannuation. A US equivalent to that might be if they failed to pay into a 401k contribution match when their employment contract stated they would. It's not "wage" per se, but it is part of the agreed compensation for work.
Leave entitlements are no different. Whether the law recognises it correctly or not, taking away people's annual leave is wage theft.
I've worked in a small company's small team of 3 devs before, it would not have been great for the company if two or all of us went on a holiday at the same time.