Can the executive director of a non-profit change the employee handbook to deny an employee PTO?
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Can the executive director of a non-profit change the employee handbook to deny an employee PTO?
I asked my employer about a medical leave as suggested by my doctor. She said to look in the handbook. I found a handbook that was created at the same time I began employment that stated all part-time and full-time employees received 2 weeks paid vacation. This was news to me, as any vacations I had taken were not paid. I asked her about this and said it was an old
version of the handbook and she would email me a new one the next day I guessed so she could cut out the parts she didn’t want to be in there. The next day I got the handbook emailed
and the entire paragraph was removed. Is this OK? Is it legal?
Asked on October 10, 2016 under Employment Labor Law, California
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 7 years ago | Contributor
It is legal to change the policies and handbook prospectively, or going forward--e.g., Tuesday morning, the employer can announce changes that take effect from that moment on. But a retroactive change is not legal: Tuesday morning, a change cannot be announced that supposedly took retroactive effect 5 months, for example. Rather, employees must be paid and get the benefits as per the policies in place when they did the work. So the question here is: do you believe that the policy was no paid vacation, and you had just gotten an incorrect, out-of-date handbook? Or do you think that the policy had been paid vacation, and the employer is now trying to retroactively change it?
If you think you had been entitled to paid vacation under the policy which was in effect until your meeting with the director, then if they won't provide you that pay for any vacation you took, you could potentially sue your employer for the pay. The suit would be based on breach of contract: violation of the agreement, as shown by the handbook you'd had, that in exchange for working, you'd get paid vacation. If you could prove in court, such as by the handbook and the testimony of, say, other employees who also had been told that paid vacation was available, that you should have been paid for any vacations you took, you could get a judgment ordering the employer to pay you the vacation pay you should have previously received.
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