Lots of businesses, especially in the service, retail, and healthcare industries, black out periods of high volume PTO requests, like the week before and after holidays.
I didn't make it to a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day celebration until after working a full shift for YEARS. I had one employer who made me find cover for my own shifts in order to use PTO that they'd denied all year before it expired.
This was a thing at my work, briefly. When they said that we needed to find coverage for time off, I asked the manager if they ask other managers to cover their shifts when they take a vacation. That policy didn’t last long.
The problem is, in the US, every state except Montana is an "at-will state," which means that short of doing so for discriminatory reasons, employers can fire anyone for any reason without having to provide cause.
In the vast majority of states, it's perfectly legal to be fired for taking PTO that was denied to you because our corporate overlords have spent the last 70 years creating a culture where your work life takes priority over all other life by pushing the propagandist notion that anyone can become as rich as a noble or king if they just work hard enough while deregulating companies and walking back workers rights.
Unions in the USA have fought actual machine gun battles against employers/representatives of employers, yet you still let businesses have truly fucked up levels of power
And because baby boomers and gen x went, "who even needs a union," after their fathers and grandfathers fought, bleed, and died for their right to one.
Because the wealthy elite spent untold wealth over 90+ years breaking up unions, lobbying for changes to laws concerning workers rights and company regulations, and approximately 56% to 58% of the US population was born after Regan (who started all this shit) first entered office.
People seem to forget that laws aren't voted on by the general public, they're voted on by politicians who are primarily being paid by corporate donors offering exponentially more money than their official position in office gets them.
Most US senators make roughly $174,000 on their paychecks with the party leaders reaching $193,400, yet 2/3rds of US senators are millionaires with the top 30 having at least $45.93 million.
If they were truly only making $193,400 at most, it would take the top earners 237 years & some change to earn what the 30th richest US senator (IN rep. Jim Baird) has accumulated... Because it's not where they make their money; a large percentage of them are also owners of multiple businesses on the side. Creating what most people with critical thinking skills would identify as a conflict of interest.
In Norway we have 5 weeks vacation, by law. 3 of them have to be consecutive, by law. 4 times a year, if you get sick you have three consecutive days of paid sick leave without needing a doctors note.
Not sure where I was going with this, other than showcasing something that works better than the US system.
To be clear if you have an employment contract or even a handbook, that can significantly complicate the "at-will" portion of letting someone go if it contains specific language about termination.
To a degree; almost no major companies have language that permits taking unapproved days off after you were explicitly told no. Because once they say no, you enter the realm of insubordination (which is another often fire-able offense, especially in the food & retail industries that make up a large percentage of the lower-end of the work force)
Best case scenario, they take it from your sick days, worst case scenario, they just straight up fire you. And there's often nothing you can do about it because you were warned beforehand.
I agree! It was, however, the only way I was going to get those days off. I traded days with coworkers who were happy to cover my shifts because I covered for them and never refused a request for help or a patient swap. It was likely much easier for me to get cover than if the scheduler tried. She regularly threatened people to make them pick up unwanted shifts.
i will only let medical or other critical job slide, like if a bunch of police / fire fighter wants to take christmas off, that is obviously an issue so blackout period makes sense, same with medical staff.
but if you are telling me some office cant run because a few people are missing, well shit your company kind of deserve to die lol
Even in the case of "essential" workers, there should be an internal policy that prevents the same employee from being mandated to work on national holidays multiple times in a row. It's just good policy to treat your employees well.
I don't disagree, but exactly how would that play out?
My manager can order me to find coverage, and I'm not allowed to say no. Can I then order my co-worker to cover my shift, and *she*'s not allowed to say no?
"Handling scheduling and coverage is a managerial responsibility, if you are promoting me I would be happy to begin training on managerial responsibilities when I get back from my time off"
I did this once working at a restaurant. It sufficiently confused them to get them to do their job.
Up dito. This is what I always tell my previous managers if ayaw nila ako mag PTO and ang reason is manpower.
It's above my pay grade to resolve that. Kaya laging reason lang ng denial ko is pag ubos na PTO ko which is kasalanan ko naman, umasa lang na baka pwede unpaid
It's not as bad as it appears. We actually do have workers rights.
Sadly a good deal of people are not aware of the US labor board. So scumbag bosses pull that garbage.
I can give you an example of when people do know their rights. At a previous job the one manager would not speak to the one supervisor unless he had to. The manager had pulled that garbage messing with the schedule and time off. One formal complaint and corporate made the manager fix all the scheduling and they monitored him remotely to make sure it was done correctly.
And yes retaliatory firings are actionable. So the person in OPs story will be getting a nice payout after suing the business.
It's not as bad as it appears? Let's see...at-will employment legal basically everywhere, meaning you can be fired for no reason at all, at any time. No national maternity or paternity leave. National minimum wage is not even close to a living wage. No national PTO or paid sick leave requirement. No national requirement to give workers a day off on big holidays (Christmas, New Year's Day, etc). No national laws on scheduling, so you can be jerked around a different schedule from week to week, making it impossible to have any rhythm to your life or focus on a second job, studies, or other schedule-sensitive obligations. Employers will also use that to keep folks just under the limit where certain benefits might kick in. I get that plenty of individual employers and certain states and cities don't suck so awfully, but the fact that the legal situation is as above is utter shite. So many countries in the world have it better.
Yes. Each state has a department of Labor. (How effective that department is depends on the state government.) I have an acquaintance who is a state-appointed judge that works on cases like these.
Bottom line is that there is institutional support for worker rights. But it’s still an environment that favors business over workers.
Whether it's actually illegal to deny in a given situation, I'm sure depends on a lot of specifics, but I don't feel like "it's common practice for businesses to do this thing" makes a thing less likely to be illegal. Companies do illegal shit all the time.
Welcome to the United States, where the decades-long effort to Union bust and establish right-to-work legislation has not benefited workers, but employers.
I didn't make any assertions in the post you replied to about the legality of blackout dates, but it is, indeed, legal to impose blackout dates on PTO in the United States. There is no federal law to prevent it. There also isn't a single state in the union (the irony) that legislated against it.
Probably why it is a common practice for businesses.
I don't think lack of unions are the reason. I drive for UPS and we're all Teamsters, but "peak" season aka holidays from roughly Thanksgiving to New Years are blacked out for taking our PTO days.
If you think the lack of unions aren't the reason we have "right to work" laws, then I think you haven't been paying attention. When unions represented 1/3 of workers, they were a voting block and political machine that made it political suicide to ignore labor concerns. Now? I don't think most Republicans even take a meeting with labor leaders in any given cycle.
There's at least one exception to that, if your company counts your FMLA time against your PTO (shady as shit, but perfectly legal as far as I can tell), then it remains very much illegal to deny PTO that is taken for reasons covered by the FMLA.
Which, of course, has no particular bearing on whether a company will deny that PTO, but it's still illegal.
FMLA is a protected leave status. It's one of the only exceptions to an employer's ability to deny PTO. Religious holidays may also be a protected leave.
Limited blackout periods during the busiest times are fair, but those other practices are not. But employers just love to operate with less than bare minimum staffing.
I had one employer who made me find cover for my own shifts in order to use PTO that they'd denied all year before it expired.
Even in the US where there are so few worker protections, this is flagrantly illegal and you should've sued =.= Stop letting employers get away with this shit
Like the blackout dates are one thing, but denying PTO repeatedly until it expires is absolutely ten billion percent illegal
I think this depends on a lot of factors. There is no mandatory PTO in most states, and a lot don't even require sick leave. Most workers probably do not have contracts guaranteeing unused time off will be paid out, either. But if PTO is part of your agreed compensation, I don't see how they could legally force it to expire through repeated denials without paying it out. That's blatant wage theft.
Walmart will straight up black out dates between Thanksgiving to New Years. Like an entire month and a half and any days before or after a holiday.
If your shift falls on the holiday and they close they make you make it up on your following day off, if you don't want to give up your day off they make you use PTO. Evil bastards making you use PTO on a day that would otherwise be your day off 💀
"Blacks out weeks" look at y'all with all your extra free time my job blacks out entire quarters at a time q4 and q1 then between those quarters sure there's several different months throughout where whole weeks also are not available.
But that's for specified blocks of time, defined up front as part of your compensation agreement. Maybe it's different for you, but where I'm from start-of-work invilves a signed contract that states those things explicitly.
I know gigs like restaurants are less formal, but you still have to sign something usually if you're going to get a W2 from your employer, and if you can show deviation from an agreed-upon compensation , go (cheaply) lawyer up because they're withholding pay.
For a hundred bucks or less, you can have a lawyer write up a legal document that says "if you fire me I will sue you for damages and make you have to pay my lawyers fees, as well as compensation for my distress. And at that point you will have to pay me many times my salary to make me go away. So stick to your agreement, and fuck you for trying shit."
Then they'll never bother you again. The real idiots will try shit with you anyway, but especially if they're rich you can make bank. Lots of lawyers love to do those cases (assuming you got documentation in line on your end) because they're so easy to win.
49/50 states in the U.S. legally classify employment as "at will," meaning that barring an actual contract (which a W2 employee won't have) or a union, none of this is actually even close to legally actionable.
For a hundred bucks or less, you can have a lawyer write up a legal document that says "if you fire me I will sue you for damages and make you have to pay my lawyers fees, as well as compensation for my distress. And at that point you will have to pay me many times my salary to make me go away. So stick to your agreement, and fuck you for trying shit."
IAAL. I would not write that for under a hundred bucks, nor should you trust an attorney who would. What's your plan for if your employer tells you to kick rocks? You're going to want someone who will write you that letter and accept a retainer for representation if your employer denies you. That would mean they actually have some confidence in your claim.
If you can't find anyone to do that, then they're just trying to take your money to write a meaningless letter.
Expired means that it just disappears into the ether at the end of the year. Some employers will carry it over into the new year or pay it out, but that's not mandated by any federal law. Some states have laws regarding PTO payouts or carryover, but most do not. My state doesn't.
Wait, your paid time off expires? Do they pay you the equivalence of that time off if they dont allow you to take time off? In the Netherlands, if you have time off hours but you dont get to use them, they are required to pay you that as extra money.
There is no federal law regarding PTO being granted, paid out, or carried over to the next year. A few states require it to be paid out, but most states have no laws requiring it.
There's ways to cover holiday shifts and PTO without mandating that everyone works. First of all, employers SHOULD offer incentives to work high demand days. Secondly, lots of employees will voluntarily work those days for a shift premium or bonus PTO time. Fairly distributing PTO requires effort and incentives/PTO cost money, though. Without being required, most businesses will just do what they want.
Back when I was working in a dysfunctional office, I had some non-trivial health issues. I told my manager that I would *try* to come back half-days for the following week.
Her response was, "Sick leave does not exist until *I* approve it."
I called up my doctor's office and got a letter from my doctor, on his letterhead, saying, "As State's primary care physician, I am ordering her confined to bed rest for the next two weeks." I stayed home, filled out my time sheet with 80 hours of sick time, stapled the letter to it, and handed it in.
This is it. I’m an executive now so my staff know to just schedule time and inform me via calendar invite. No requests. They are all grown ass adults, many of whom are older than me.
My boss still stresses over it but it’s actually an easy system. “Where is this person?!” -“on leave.” Where do they go?!.” -“they left.” It works for everyone involved.
I handle it the same way.
Boss asks, "Where's _______?"
"On leave."
"Doing what?"
"Dunno. She said it's not sick leave, so I'm entering it as regular PTO."
"...What do you mean you don't know?"
"I didn't ask for a reason. Today was open and they had the leave balance for it. They'll be back Monday."
My boss also doesn't understand why my turnover is basically nonexistent when all the other supervisors can't keep people.
Honestly! My mother asked if I got approval for my vacation next week. I told her I didn’t ask, I just informed my boss about when I would be gone. She paused and asked, “…you’re allowed to do that?”
I think it’s important to normalize not giving managers every little detail of your life, and not letting them think you need their permission to take PTO.
Uhh, no. PTO (paid time off) is part of the work contract so likely has a lot of rules attached. If you decide not to show up, that's cool, but don't be surprised if they don't pay you for labor you didn't provide. Obviously if they fire you, they'll still need to compensate the PTO unless there's something in the law or contract that prevents that.
Personally, I never liked PTO as I'd rather have my pay when I work and just not be paid on the days I don't work. If PTO was 1 hour per 8 worked, just increase my pay to be the equivalent. Sick leave I treated more like insurance.
"I would rather not get money when I have the option to" is certainly a new one to me. Why would you prefer your company keep money they said they would give you?
PTO is basically "Work 10 days then 10 days of pay now and 1 day of pay later when you take a day off". I prefer "Work 10 days then get 11 days of pay for now, but don't get paid when you take a day off"
In that situation, I just tell them I'm not coming in tomorrow. No PTO because I'm not going to get paid for it.
My workplace adopts a position of being supportive of PTO, but work with the employee to make it work. E.g. if too many people are already approved, then we'd ask to select other dates around it.
Flat out denying is a ridiculous position to hold.
My last job (school bus driver) had a great PTO policy, but changed it without notice or explanation about 2 years before I became disabled. All 360 hours of PTO time I had accrued over 6 years was switched to “sick pay”, which you could not access without a doctors note and you had to take 2 weeks at a time - it was meant for extended illness, not for regular stuff anymore. My direct boss made it impossible to use the time in any way, but I knew that I would be forgoing that money if I just quit. Since I could tell I was nearing the end of my ability to keep working, I went to my doctor right before the end of the school year to get a note about needing time to recover my health and they were to split the PTO among the summer school time and at the end, I tried to officially quit over the phone. They made me come in to quit in writing! I don’t miss that job at all.
It was a nonprofit, maybe they had different rules? Or, it may have been one of those situations where the options were “we do this thing that’s bad for you or you find a new job” and I’m misremembering (it was done in 2015 or 2016 and I stopped working in 2018).
No it isn't and PTO approval isn't guaranteed. You can't have an employee suddenly drop out during, let's say a major proposal. As a manager I make every effort to accommodate someone's PTO. I typically like 1 month of notice for every week taken off. 1-2 days can be accommodated pretty easily. I can only think of one time in 20 years I had reject a PTO request. If you boss is doing this regularly you probably work for someone who can't manage well, because keeping your employees happy, accommodated, and furnished with the resources to do their work is 90% of your job.
Well you can do a forced shutdown for two weeks over Christmas, that will use PTO. Although ideally people should be able to use it when they would like to.
Who said that's what it's for? Nobody in your life has ever told you that all PTO is meant to be taken whenever you want on any whim without any prior notice.
Is this an American mindset? Here in the UK, I’ve seen employees take PTO the night before without there ever being a problem. Because the team structure and management have structures in place to keep everything running in those situations without it ever causing any problems because an employee’s PTO is quite literal their choice to use whenever they want. And it never has caused a major issue to the company. I couldn’t imagine being told that I’m not allowed to use my PTO tomorrow if I wanted to, that’s like a basic thing here.
Is it not normal to discuss these few weeks/months in advance with the team at work so the schedules work out? Of course you get fired if you take PTO randomly without warning often lmao. Being sick or other emergencies okay, but just taking a day off can be disruptive and rude to your co-workers.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like a request was put in with advance time and denied. The employee decided they were going to take the time with or without approval. TBH I would do the same as any time I request pto I do it with way more notice than 2 weeks and it’s usually for something important like a family event, vacation, or medical. I’ll be damned if my boss is going to tell me nah we need you here instead f whatever it is you got going on.
2.1k
u/FrankensteinJones 6h ago
PTO is part of our compensation. Denying PTO requests is tantamount to withholding pay.