Human Resource Blog

Yes. California employers with 5 or more workers must give employees up to 4 months of unpaid, job-protected pregnancy disability leave. This leave is in addition to any unpaid leave under FMLA or CFRA, so an employee may be entitled to 4 months of disability, plus 12 weeks of FMLA. Employees on pregnancy disability are guaranteed the same job when they return and can request that guarantee in writing from the employer. Pregnancy disability leave is only valid during the period that the employee is certified by her doctor as unable to work. Any company that provides longer disability leave for other medical conditions, must also provide the same benefit for pregnant workers. Employees on pregnancy disability leave must give the employer as much advanced notice as possible — 30 days notice is preferable.

The California paid family leave program allows employees to take up to 6 weeks off to care for a newborn or a family member who is ill. Under this program, nearly every worker in the state is entitled to benefit payments during the leave. However, you are correct that the law does not require a small employer (with less than 50 full-time and part-time workers total) to reinstate the employee.

CFRA, which is the state law that provides benefits similar to the federal FMLA, applies to state and local government employees regardless of size. It also applies to businesses and non-profits with 50 or more workers.

All California employers must post notices about the various types of family leave available in the state. In addition, if they have employee handbooks, those handbooks must include information about employee leave required by law.

Read more about the CFRA at: http://www.dfeh.ca.gov/about/cfraDescription.aspx

Read more about paid family leave here: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/state/fmla/ca.htm

Read more about the pregnancy disability law here: http://www.dfeh.ca.gov/publications/publications.aspx?showPub=17

Obviously it is not a best practice in the HR field for an employer to offer paid vacation, but refuse to allow an employee to use it. However, it may be legal. The Massachusetts Minimum Fair Wage Law does not require employers to offer paid sick leave or paid vacation. Employers who do offer those benefits can set any policies they like regarding them. However, usually an employee who is terminated must be paid for earned vacation time.

It is very common for employers to approve the timing of vacation in advance, to make sure that there are enough workers to get the job done. It is very uncommon for an employee with earned vacation time to be told that she cannot use it, ever. That pretty much defeats the purpose of offering vacation time, and it is not a reasonable policy. But unless the employer is applying this in a way that discriminates against a worker based on race, color, sex, religion, pregnancy, or age, it is probably not illegal.

The best bet for this employee would be for her to volunteer to train someone else to do the critical parts of her job. Another option would be for the company to hire an employee from a temporary service to fill in while the worker is on vacations. If the employeeis willing to forego the vacation time, she could offer to be paid extra in lieu of taking the time off. Many employees in this situation would be tempted to tell their boss \\\”I am going on vacation 6 weeks from now. I have already bought my plane ticket, and if my vacation request is denied, unfortunately I will have to quit.\\\” The employee would need to be willing to follow through on that threat, though. The positive side is, if the employee quits, she is most likely entitled to payment for her vacation time. This is enforced by the Massachusetts office of the Attorney General.

No, the Illinois company would not be required to pay this worker for any unused vacation time. This employee had one week of vacation time after one year, and used it. He quit before he had earned any additional vacation time.

The policy clearly states that the employee earns 2 weeks of vacation after 2 years — not 1 week after 18 months and an additional week after 24 months. That means if the employee quits one day shy of the 2-year mark, he does not earn any vacation time for the last year. The policy further states that vacation time is fully earned as of January 1 — meaning if the employee quit on December 31, he would have no vacation time.

Employers are wise to keep accurate records of the hours worked, even by salaried exempt employees. However, this will not usually entitle the employee to additional sick time or vacation time. That is because most companies cap the amount of sick time and vacation time that employees accrue, based on an 8 hour day. Suppose John is a salaried employee who accrues 1.0 hours of sick time and 1.0 hours of vacation time when he works an 8-hour day. Most payroll programs are set up so that if John works 12 hours one day, he does not earn 1.5 hours of sick time or vacation time. John still accrues a maximum of 1.0 hours of sick time and 1.0 hours of vacation time, for the day, as if he had worked 8 hours.

It seems likely that this employee is trying to pull a fast one. If that is true, you are likely to win the unemployment case on appeal. An Illinois employee would be entitled to unemployment benefits if he or she was working full time, and suddenly had their hours reduced to part time. However, that does not seem to be the case here. It appears that the employee always knew that he or she would not be full time, and that their hours would vary. Is it possible that the first few weeks the employee worked more? If so, he or she is probably telling the unemployment office that they were changed from full time to part time.

Presumably, you have documentation such as the employees original new hire paperwork that shows the employee was hired on a part time basis. That will go a long way towards supporting your claim, that he was never a full time employee.