My wife took unpaid maternity leave last winter and was a full time employee getting vacation pay. The company requires you work 24 hours per week to quality for vacation pay. She went back and reduced her hours, but still worked at least 24 hours per week. She was just told that she did not qualify for vacation pay based on the amount of hours she worked this year. They are dividing her hours worked into her weeks worked, but are including the maternity leave weeks when she wasn't working, so there for coming up short. The FMLA says when returning to work you are entitled to the same benefits before you left. Now the HR person is saying that FMLA says you give up your right to vacation when you take leave. I think they are searching for reasons not to pay her. Is this legal? When returning she was still working the required amount of hours per week.

Thanks.

FMLA only requires that she be treated as anyone else. If others who took leave would not be granted vacation, then she need not either. If she returned to a PT position and doesn't have enough hours to earn vacation, then nothing in FMLA is going to require that leave be granted to her.