Rhode Island - I have a week of vacation owed to me, but my employer refuses to let me schedule the days consecutively. Is this legal? Where is this in the labor code?

Thanks.

The employer is not required to provide you with any vacation time at all.

The employer can dictate the terms of when and how you use the benefit.

But if I signed a contract saying I get "a week" of vacation after a year, isn't that understood that it's not an hour or a day here and there but an entire week? Other employees have taken a week at a time, so the non-consecutive thing is not an official policy and it's not in their employee manual.

If I submitted my vacation request according to the contract and the employee manual I signed, don't they have to grant it to me? I guess this is more of a contract issue than a code issue. I just think it's the same as denying me vacation if they never allow me to schedule it.

Is what you signed an enforceable contract or simply the employee manual?

If the former, have an attorney read it to see what you can do about your vacation.

Otherwise, you can only take up the problem with the company chain of command.

Time-off requests are just that: "requests". The manager/owner is free to accept or deny as sees fit. It's unfortunate that your request has been denied. It's ok to deny even if you follow company policy and protocol. My suggestion is to speak with your supervisor and find out when is a good time to take your vacation. It's apparant that the days you requested would interefere with other requests or business needs.

It's apparant that the days you requested would interefere with other requests or business needs.
Well that's just it--they don't. There is no "busy season" in the office and absolutely nothing scheduled. They're always going to tell me that it's "too busy" for me to take two days off, and this is a ploy.

In another thread, it was explained that if you resign, they owe you the vacation pay you earned. If they owe you the pay, why don't they owe you the actual time?

Nothing that you've stated said that they would never allow you to take your requested vacation. What's in dispute are the specific dates of the vacation request. That is something you will need to work out with your boss. No law says that vacation must even be offered. So by offering vacation the boss has far exceeded what's required by law.

And just for clarification purposes:
Not all states require payout of vacation at termination. It's true that Rhode Island does (but this is not true of all 50 states).

Rhode Island law says that whenever a worker is separated from payroll after one year of service, any vacation pay accrued by collective bargaining agreement, company policy or other agreement becomes wages due and payable in full or prorated basis on next regularly scheduled pay date.

But if I signed a contract saying I get "a week" of vacation after a year, isn't that understood that it's not an hour or a day here and there but an entire week?

Quite frankly, no, it's not. That means you get a week's worth of time; not that you are guaranteed to be able to take it all at once. Nor does the law address this issue at all.