Can your employer dictate/force when you take time off?

To add to the echo chamber, your griping about pretty standard industry operating procedure.
I worked at a Knight-Ridder paper where you accrued vacation time during every pay period, but you could take advances on your year's vacation...in other words, you could take off two weeks in March even though you hadn't earned that much time yet. The bad thing was, if you burned up your time during the year and then split, you would owe the paper for the time they advanced you. In other words, if you used two weeks in March and split in June, they would dock a week of vacation out of your last paycheck. That really didn't seem right.....

 

I once got paid for a week to stay home.

This was during a, um, philosophical disagreement with management.

So I go back after a week and the guy says "So, where do we go from here?"

And I said, "I've enjoyed the last week. I wouldn't mind continuing this arrangement indefinitely."

Well, hell, you might as well ask.

 

The paper I used to work at, about three guys out of the nine on staff took new jobs within a month (around May)...the management decided to drag their feet as long as possible to save a few pennies, and went the whole summer without filling them.

As a result, some of us had to swallow some vacation time just to get a fucking paper out every day. When the school year started, things got crazy and we obviously couldnt' take it then, even with the new hires.

Come December, management sends a letter telling us how much vacation we lost and chided us for not using the benefit to "recharge"

Fuck you.

 

Obviously, certain times of the year are out for scheduled vacation. However, if I'm approaching month No. 11 without any time off, I've declared that I'll just walk out for two weeks whether they like it or not. I might have a job when I go back, and I might have to work for my father at the store. At least I'll get my time off to relax a little.

 

You gotta love this business. Seriously. :

Prior to this paper, I worked for Freedom and Dean Singleton for the previous 8 years. Not once was I ever told, "Listen, kid, but you gotta take some vacation time." The latter's vacation policies were extremely liberal ... when I left, I had in excess of 125 hours and I got paid at 100 percent my hourly rate. So pardon me if I call BS on this being SOP in the industry (or in most professions, for that matter). Not if a cheapskate like Singleton doesn't have his undies in a wad over it.

The kicker in all of this, is that I was told under the old system, it gave accounting too many headaches. LOL ... aren't they fucking paid to keep things like this straightened out?

Appreciate the responses, but if this is the direction things are headed, I'm glad I'm making plans to get out of it.

 

Things have changed.

Two words: "mandatory vacations."

 

By and large, "the guvvmint" has no interest in enforcing such laws, which they view as an imposition upon good honest businessmen just trying to make a decent profit.

 

We have something of an informal arrangement on my staff. Technically, we're supposed to take our allotted vacation in the calendar year, but if there are a few days or a week of carryover we can usually get away with taking it with the first couple months of the new year. I'm sure if one of the execs knew about it they'd put the kibosh on it, but it's worked that way since I've been here (about 11 years). My former editor (who I've since taken over for) preferred it that way because we don't have five guys trying to wedge in their vacations during the summer months when stuff slows down locally. Since two of our guys were there for more that 20 years, they had five weeks of vacation time to get in. It would be hard to do if they had to take all that time in the summer months.

 

I get two weeks, I got those when I started, but I think some reporters have to accrue starting in January. I usually try not to take those until the summer, maybe a few days scattered here and there. My boss is pretty good about that. We also get our birthday off paid.

We aren't allowed rollover, not that I would ever let that be an issue.

And as far as unfair labor practices, just file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. My last paper, someone did and several people got PAID!. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them.

The NLRB does eventually get around to these, they have field offices all over the country. Worth a shot at least.

 

The only thing I have to say: you get a paid day off for your birthday?

I would like to know where you work ;D

 

Canada Post.

 

I've never worked anywhere that you got paid day for your birthday.

Now I have worked places where you might get 3 or 4 personal days or whatever that you can schedule through the year -- with the approval of your boss. But if you don't take them, that's your tough luck.