I have a question reguarding holiday pay.

According to our "employee handbook" Christmas is our only paid holiday and we are to be paid for Christmas.

also according to our handbook... all employees who work on holidays are to be paid time and a half.

My question is.... is it legal for my employer to refuse to give us Christmas pay if we work Christmas?

The past employer (we were bought out a few years ago) paid us both but this employer refuses to give those who work Christmas the holiday pay.

If this is not legal where can I find the statue so that I have a copy of it?

In maybe 3 states some employees working on certain holidays get paid time & a half. Pa. is not one of the states. You only need to be paid like you would for any other day.

You seem to be hourly non-exempt employees.

You can take your employee handbook to an employment or contract attorney in your area to see if they believe it *might* rise to the level of an enforceable contract - most do not.

the issue wasn't the time and a half... they paid that... they refused to give us the "holiday pay" we did not get paid for Christmas like those who did not work did.

My co-workers who did not work Christmas last year actually got more pay than those of us who worked Christmas.

If you got paid time and a half for working Christmas, they have already paid you more than the law requires. They are not required to pay you yet again.

Agree, nothing illegal here.

So... basically what you are saying is that their "handbook" is a joke and in no way binding?

if the handbook is not a legal contract for them to pay what they say they will pay then it only stands to reason that all their "rules" for their employees are not legally binding either. Ok... cool.

You can certainly take the handbook to an attorney versed in contract law and she what he/she says, as Betty3 advised yesterday.

What is the exact wording of that portion of the handbook?

I seriously doubt that your handbook states that you will receive an extra 8 hours of holiday pay when you work on the holiday.

The handbook states

Christmas is a paid holiday. Full time employees will be paid 8 hours and part time employees will be paid 4 hours pay for Christmas.

the next paragraph states

All employees who work holidays will receive time and a half for all hours worked.

I see nothing there that says you will be paid 8 hours of holiday pay IN ADDITION TO being paid time and a half for the working on the holiday. It is not required by law and I very seriously doubt that the DOL will read it as saying so. You are free to inquire but your chances of success are very, very slim.

The handbook may not state that but it is implied... guess who will NOT be working next year. I've worked 10 Christmas eves, 10 Christmas' and 10 New Years eves in a row even though I've requested vacation time off for those holidays several times (and been refused).

It is also the exact wording as the previous owners used and they paid both.

What you put doesn't imply that you would receive time & half plus Christmas pay that others receive. It's simply stating that if you don't work on Christmas you will still get paid. And if you do work Christmas, you will get Time & Half.

There isn't any wording in what you provided that states, If you work Christmas that you will receive Time & Half on top of regular pay. What the previous owners did isn't relevant as someone else is in charge now.

I see no such implication in what you've posted there. It is highly unusual to be paid both holiday pay and wages at time and a half for the same hours and if the former owners did that you should count your blessings that you had such a generous employer.

I just dug out my copy of the handbook for the exact wording... it states


"Christmas is to be a paid holiday. All full time employees will receive 8 hours pay and all part time employees will receive 4 hours pay for this and only this holiday."


Hmmm... then goes on to say that "all employees working any holiday will receive time and a half for all hours worked."

so does that put any kind of implied to it... those are exact word for word quotes from the handbook.



also if it is so uncommon for both to be paid then it seems odd that all of us have received that type of pay in the past from previous employers including one of my coworkers who worked for the railroad prior to retirement and always received double time and a half for Christmas.

Since you are convinced that we are all wrong and you are right, please take your employee handbook to an attorney in your state and see if you can convince him that you are due still more pay even though you have already received more than the law requires. You haven't convinced us and you aren't going to convince us, so any more discussion here is going to be a waste of time.

I don't know... maybe I'm just tired of busting my butt for these people and tired of not being able to find another job... they don't exist in this town right now.... but it seems that the labor laws are there to protect the employer and allow them to take advantage of the employees. They can refuse your vacation time, pay how ever they want, fire you for no reason, what rights do we as workers even have?

Call me tired of working for what little they decide to pay me, being told I won't be getting a raise because I already make too much, well if you call 10.00 an hour too much then I'm guilty, tired of working every major holiday because I'm single and don't have kids therefore in their eyes have no life, basically being told I'll never have a New Years eve off because noone else knows how to close out the system for the end of the year and well we just aren't going to train anyone else to do it, they pay 8 hours in the fall when the time changes and 7 in the spring when the time changes and their comment is that it evens out over the year. I've been lied to by management and ownership, had other employees come to me with things management has said about me that were not discussed with me and yet I seem to have no rights. Tired of the system that protects such practices.

got ya... will not darken your "door" again....

"It is highly unusual to be paid both holiday pay and wages at time and a half for the same hours and if the former owners did that you should count your blessings that you had such a generous employer."

In human services, this is a common practice (among human service providers who have high employee satisfaction scores!). But many of us are "generous employers" in this regard.

At our 24/7/365 locations we pay the time & a half PLUS 8 hours straight holiday pay to anyone working on the holiday. It's the bast way we've found to get people to work on a day that everyone wants off. We have to ensure that group homes and other residential facilities are adequately staffed and this "carrot" works quite well. Now when people normally scheduled to work on a holiday need to take off, there are a bunch of people signing up for the shift.

It may be common in human services. It is rare in the extreme for most industries.