Human Resource Blog

Holiday pay

As an employer do l have to pay holiday back pay for year 2007-2008 and 2008-2009?

Sorry, we do not quite understand the question. There is no state or federal law that requires holiday pay in all industries. (One or two states may have such a law regarding retail businesses.) So as a general rule, you do not have to offer paid holidays to employees. This is a matter of company policy, not employment law.

There are no legally established holidays in the US. As an employer, you decide which holidays your business will observe. If you choose, your company can be open on Christamas Day and closed on Groundhog Day. Or, you can choose not to honor any holidays.

When an employee is off on a holiday, you do not have to pay the employee, unless you have an established policy of doing so. If an employee works on a holiday, he or she must be paid the usual wage or salary for hours worked. An employee who works more than 40 hours in the payroll week is entitled to overtime pay. There is no legal requirement that you pay employees a higher rate for working on holidays.

If you have a written policy that you will pay employees on holidays, then you need to honor that policy. In several states, the department of labor would require that you honor any commitment for payment to employees. However, you can change the holiday policy at any point, as long as you do so in advance. That means if you had a written policy of paying workers for holidays in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and you did not do so, then the employees may be due holiday pay. However, if you never had a written policy of paying workers for holidays, you are not obligated to begin now, or to pay back wages now.

It is possible that your question actually addresses vacation pay, which is different from holiday pay in the US. If so, or if we have misunderstood your query, please post another question.

Holiday pay