Is it legal for a company to deny me "cashing in" my vacation hours when I resign?

Have you ever read the company policy? Most give out a handbook the day you start to work for them and its explained inside.

I was paid for my vacation days when I retired. It was all in the handbook.

This is why it is so important to read the literature they give you, when first employed.

I wish you luck, but they may be correct.

@john65pennington Never had an employee handbook. Very small company.

Here is VA’s Labor Law website.. I did not search for your answer, but if you can’t find it, there probably is a contact number, and you can just call up and find out the answer.

I know companies can call vacation time use or lose, so maybe they are not obligated to pay when you resign? Not sure.

This doesn’t specifically say, but…

“1. Are you claiming VACATION PAY, SICK PAY, SEVERANCE PAY, HOLIDAY PAY, OTHER FRINGE BENEFITS, OR BUSINESS EXPENSES that you believe are owed to you? While you may be legally entitled to such claims under contract law, this Department does not accept these types of claims for investigation. To recover on these claims you should ask the Clerk of the General District Court to help you file a Warrant In Debt against your employer. You may wish to consult a private attorney to discuss your claim.”

Thanks, @JLeslie . That link says right up front: “Fringe benefits such as vacation, sick, holiday, and severance pay are not required to be given under the law, and employers may establish any or no policy regarding these fringe benefits.” in Virginia.

OK! Thanks! I seem to have no legal ground on this, much to my dismay. I told my girlfriend I’d “ask the internet” and you all came through.

@crisedwards – I think that quote (“fringe benefits…”) means that an employer is not required to provide vacation or sick pay to an employee. I suspect the second link I sent might be more applicable because it talks about “contract law”. In other words, if your employment with them (the contract) gave you these fringe benefits, you might be entitled to them. I could be wrong.

Oh. :) Well, there you go.

labour laws in the US are criminal by other civilized country standards. shocking.

This is from the website @JLeslie referenced:
‘Does an employer have to provide employees breaks or a meal period?
No, unless the employee is under the age of 16.’
‘Are there any restrictions as to how many hours an employee can be required to work or when he may work?
No, not after an employee attains his 16th birthday.’

REALLY? So, an employer can have you work 10 or 12 hours with NO BREAK???? that is some f***ed up shit.

The OP has accrued only two weeks vacation leave in three years? Is that normal?

When I was doing accounting, vacation days had to be treated as a liability and we had to make our employees take the time off or our balance sheets looked bad. Different companies did have different rules about rolling over your vacation days from year to year, but personell had to be made aware of how many vacation days they had to take or lose in the last quarter. If there was vacation days yet to be taken by the employee when they left us, we wrote them a check for the amount owed and it was debited off the liability account. Simple rule. Everything balanced. BUT, it was part of National Employment law that employees were entitled to. We also got two 15 minute tea breaks and a half hour for lunch, but we worked from 08.30 to 17.00 so it wasn’t a paid lunch half hour, but we were entitled to it.

@Bellatrix the OP mentioned that he took ‘almost none’ so he must have taken some.

This depends from state to state – in CA and I think a few others, the company is required to disburse the accrued vacation pay. In NY and some others, they are required to disburse it only if they never wrote in their handbook that the funds will not be disbursed upon termination – and if this clause is not written anywhere, the ex-employee can make a good case to get the money. Other states have other fine print. You ought to look into this carefully, and try to contact someone at the DoL to ask if you can’t get a clear answer from the internet. It’s not as difficult to get a live person on the phone as you might think. Good luck!

@cazzie: The individual states have the right to make labor laws, such as mandatory break periods. In NYS, where I live, you have the right to 15 minutes per four hours. So therefore, I work a 7 hour day, and the one hour lunch meets the minimum standard (8 hour day total minus 7 hours = 3½ hours technically).

I have never heard of a state not requiring breaks after a certain amount of hours worked. I have a feeling there is federal law on the matter and VA just follows federal requirements. Some states actually write law that is equal to or better than federal requirements, and then follow what is better for the employee.

The are child labor laws that also might be on a different page for teens controlling maximum hours that can be worked, especially whileschool is in session.

Wow! I stand corrected. Seems there is no federal laws on break requirements, except for defining the difference between a paid break and not paid lunch time. Every state I have lived in had a requirement as far as I know. Also, the companies usually have their own rules as well.

Just because a company gives you vacation days as a BENEFIT, they do not have to give you the option of being paid for them at separation. If you want to research the law check your state department of labor as well as the federal one.

Of course, if you actually work under a contract which stipulates you will have such an option, then the company would have to abide by the contract. You don’t indicate that to be the case.

Also, when you resign just tack your vacation days on the end of your anticipated separation date and you accomplish the same thing.

This is my opinion only.

I was doing accounting in New Zealand, I should have put that in my original post. New Zealand has national labour laws that actually protected the rights of workers, not the US, but that does sort of scare me that the USofA has no national protection for workers. I don’t think they can jump up and down and say that they are such a great moral nation and Joe Biden shouldn’t attack China for it’s civil rights record without looking long and hard at his own country. wow.

@MollyMcGuire has a good idea. Give a month notice and take the two weeks, for example, before you go. That would not have to happen where I work(government, under a contract=union), as we get paid for them before we go, so we’d not want to take them if we could avoid it.