Hello,

I work for a very small company, less than 30 people and am located in Ohio. When an employee is granted vactation time it is expected that the other employees will cover those hours. There has been a problem with all shifts not being covered, and the manager has now insisted that they must be covered. There simply aren't always enough people to take up the slack for a week or two filling in for someone away on vacation. It has now been decided if an employee cannot find coverage for their vacation hours, that time will be lost. We aren't allowed to carry time over to the next year, and the company will only pay out 10 hours of unused vacation time.

Here's my situation. I'm the only person to have not taken vacation since this new policy was enacted. My vacation is not until December. I was informed yesterday that if my hours were not completely covered I would not be allowed to take my vacation, which would make me the only employee not given a vacation in 2005.

What are my rights in this matter?

Thanks for your time and help,

CallieJ

Your right is to find a new job where the vacation policies are not as strict.

I'm not saying I think your employer is handling this in the best possible way, and I'm not saying I don't understand why you're upset, but your employer is not violating any laws. The law does not say (1) that you are entitled to take a vacation every year, (2) that an employer cannot change his vacation policies or (3) that an employer cannot require you to find coverage before you are allowed to take time off.

Even if out of all the employees I am the only one not granted vacation? All other employees were given full vacations no matter if their hours were covered or not.

Yes, even if. The law doesn't say that if the employer wants to change his vacation policy, he has to wait until all the employees have had their vacation on the old policy first. SOMEONE has to be the first one on the new policy; looks like it's you. You're not being singled out because of an illegal reason; you just happen to have been the only employee who hadn't taken vacation yet when the policy changed.

I agree that it's a shame he didn't wait till the beginning of the new year to implement the change, but the law doesn't say he has to.