I'm a salary (exempt) employee at a company of 10. My direct supervisor has recently informed me that my job requires AT LEAST 50 hours per week. While I usually work beteen 40-50 hrs per week voluntarily due to the demands of my position (supervisory), the idea that AT LEAST 50 hrs a week is REQUIRED is new.

I have 2 questions:

1. Does West Virginia law provide for any limit to the number of hours a salary employee can be required to work? If my employer decides that 70 hrs per week is required, is this OK too?

2. Does West Virginia law provide for the payment of accrued sick/vacation time when an employee quits or is fired?

I appreciate any help you can give me on these issues.

1. No.

2. Only if the company policy provides for such payment. The law in WV does not unconditionally require vacation payout at termination and, to my knowledge, no state requires payout of sick time.

1.) There are only two states that limit the number of hours that any employee, exempt or non-exempt, can be required to work, and West Virginia is neither of them.

2.) To the best of my knowledge, no state requires the payout of unused sick time unless so provide by binding agreement, policy or CBA. The state of West Virginia does require the payout of unused vacation time at termination.

Hey, Patty, we need to get on the same page here. My source shows that vacation time IS unconditionally due at termination.

We need a tie breaker. Betty?

I'll wait for the tie breaker. If it IS due, can someone direct me to the appropriate statute?

Betty's good at that.

Sorry - just to clarify - if it IS due, would I be correct in assuming that no written policy could override what is provided for by state law?

Sorry - just to clarify - if it IS due, would I be correct in assuming that no written policy could override what is provided for by state law?

That would be correct. I don't have my other source with me and the WV DOL website is virtually useless. :mad:

... and the WV DOL website is virtually useless. :mad:

A useless state website? Imagine that.

One reason that I try to avoid answering some state specific questions is that in my experience most sources tend to be pretty soft in this area. Several employers ago, I used one of the major paid library services and the Tax Group department used a different paid library service. We used to routinely compare answers and we found state level differences with some frequency. Bummer. However I do not think we ever found a federal level difference.

Some of the sources my paid service's answers would cite would be something like "telephone call with John Smith on ...". Makes you wonder what the answer would have been if they had talked to someone else on a different day.

One problem is that unless you know the actual source (law, regulation, court decision, private letter ruling, off hand comment), you do not know just how firm the decision really was. Lots of times that states simply have not had a firm decision made. Direct deposit (for example) has been around for decades now, and many states still do not have formal rules at all, and those states that do often have not formally addressed certain related issues.

West Va. - Upon separation, employers must pay any "accrued fringe benefits capable of calculation" directly to employees. That may include vacation & sick leave, but employers may decide whether sick & vacation leave are payable to an employee upon separation. The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has held that terms of employment concerning the payment of unused fringe benefits "must be express and specific so that employees understand the amount of unused fringe benefit pay, if any, owed to them upon separation from employment. Accordingly, Courts(s) will construe any ambiguity in the terms of employment in favor of employees."
W.Va. Code 21-5-1 et seq. Meadows v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 207 W. Va. 203, 530 S.E.2d 676 (1999)

Sorry, I just got to W. Va. - it's at the end of the alphabet. :)

Sounds like Patty's source wins; it depends on company policy.

Agree but they sure better make their policy known.