Vacations, Personal Days and Holidays, Sick Leave

How do I know how much vacation time I'm entitled to? How many sick says do I get? What happens if I don't use all my vacation or sick days?

Article IX (Vacations) Article X (Holidays and Personal Days) and Article XIV (Sick Leave) of your collective bargaining agreement together contain many important provisions regarding compensated time off that are essential to know, and should be reviewed by everyone in order to ensure their full understanding.

We will not attempt in this posting to go into the details of each of each article. Instead we will discuss the common "USE EM OR LOSE EM" aspect of each.

ARTICLE IX: VACATIONS

Vacation entitlement is measured annually on the anniversary of your date of hire.

EXAMPLE:
Assume you are a regular full-time employee hired on November 23rd. Each ensuing November 23rd your vacation entitlement for the coming anniversary year is determined.

All full-time regular employees are entitled to carry over 1½ times their annual vacation entitlement from year to year. Any earned and unused vacation time in excess of 1½ times the employees annual vacation entitlement will be paid to the employee each July at the rate of 50% of the unused excess, and the employee's available vacation time will be reduced at that time to the maximum amount permitted to be carried over.

EXAMPLE:
Again using November 23rd as your hypothetical anniversary date of hire, let us assume that you have earned two weeks and two days (96 hours) of vacation time during the coming vacation year, and that last year you earned two weeks and two days (96 hours) of vacation that you did not use. You have now accumulated double your annual vacation entitlement, two weeks and two days (96 hours). You are only entitled to accrue 1½ times your annual vacation entitlement, in this case two weeks and two days (96 hours) plus one week and one day (48 hours). In July, if this is still the case, your accumulated vacation time will be reduced from four weeks and four days (192 hours) to three weeks and three days (144). You will have lost one week and one day (48 hours) of vacation time. The company will pay you for ½ of your lost vacation time, 24 hours.

The full text of the vacation language begins on page 10 of your contract.

ARTICLE X: HOLIDAYS AND PERSONAL DAYS

Your Union contract sets forth seven regular holidays for which eligible employees shall receive a day's pay. They are New Year's Day, Easter, Memorial Day July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. If it is necessary for the store or a department to remain open on one of the listed holidays, eligible employees who work on that holiday shall be granted a "floating" holiday to be taken at a time mutually convenient to the employee's store manager or Department Manager.

If a paid holiday falls on an employee's regularly scheduled day off during the work week, the employee shall be entitled to receive a paid day off at a time mutually convenient to the employee, the Store Manager, or the employee's Department Manager.

All "floating" holidays must be taken within one (1) year from the date on which the holiday for which they are substituting occurs. If you don't use your "floating" holidays you will lose them, and there will be no payout for the "floating" holidays you lose.

The full text of the holiday/personal day language begins on page 11 of your contract.

ARTICLE XIV: SICK LEAVE

All regular full-time employees are eligible for sick leave. New employees become eligible on the first day of the month following 60 days of continuous employment.

All eligible employees will be credited with six (6) days of sick leave on January 1st of each year (pro-rated for new employees who start during the year).

There is no carryover of sick leave from one year to the next. All full-time employees will be paid 50% of the value of any sick days not used as of the immediately preceding December 31st.

The full text of the sick leave language begins on page 14 of your contract.