In Canada, it’s illegal to not have vacation days or have your vacation time paid out. I’ve never heard of it happening here because it’s so easy to prove or disprove that only idiots would do it. Don’t worry, many employers will screw you over in ways that are harder to track.
You will have all your accrued vacation paid out when you leave. It will also be paid out if you don’t use it soon enough. At my current employer, you have a little over a year. It is also possible to have it paid out on every paycheck and you have to set it aside for when you want to go on vacation, since you won’t be paid then. Here’s what it’s like in Manitoba, I suspect it isn’t very different elsewhere in Canada.
Yeah, it’s legal to not require people to take vacation time here, but you still are paid for that vacation time, albeit in a way that makes it very easy for you to not have any money during your time off, especially if you’re already struggling financially. Our work culture is much closer to American than European, and I’m personally not a fan of a lot of it. But you will either receive paid time off or money in lieu with the option of having unpaid time off.
Sure, but of those 50,000 words, a tiny subset has to do with PTO or leave (and I’d bet that that section of the contract is specifically mentioned in the table of contents). Homie decided that he wanted to do something special with their leave time. Something out of the ordinary. Then, they chose to not ask their HR department, their supervisor, their co-workers, or consult their presumably readily available company policy archive to research for themselves whether their plan was viable.
I understand not wanting to victim blame, but, as presented in this story, this individual is a victim of their own negligence, and that is something that we can hold folks accountable for.
Yeah, we had our explained clearly in orientation, and it’s in the employee handbook, also available in orientation or the company handbook. I manage people, and if they ask me, I’ll pull out the handbook and show them. It’s not hard, there’s a nice table of contents and everything, and the relevant section is like 2 paragraphs.
In fact, I consult it periodically and find cool stuff that I wasn’t aware of (but also not relevant to me), like bereavement leave (apparently extra PTO if someone dies, and you get different amounts based on relationship), or our profit-sharing plan (X% of compensation to retirement plan, has a vesting schedule; separate from matching plan and bonus).
Read through your benefits, you might just find something cool. If not, at least you’re not doing your actual, boring work…
My current contract is one page long. But granted, it is based on a tariff that was negotiated by unions, so it doesn’t list all those details and just refers to said negotiation results.
If OP has an employment contract and can read, then it’s entirely their fault. This is something that’s easy to check and is written down so that both sides are clear what the terms are. Even if they can’t read they should have asked someone to read it to them.
A lot of companies don’t have a contract (mine just had an offer letter), but they’ll have a benefits description, which will have stuff like the PTO policy. Read that every so often, and do it on the clock.
That said, the vacation expiration rules haven’t always been around. They started showing up back in the 90s/00s, as accounting firms started counting these days as liabilities and businesses started trying to minimize how many days were outstanding on their books.
I did know a few public school teachers who did exactly this. They’d save up vacation for five years and then take a paid semester off.
Can’t do it anymore, but it wasn’t always this way.
Yup, it was a shift because unlimited vacation was from the boomer era where employers actually treated employees fairly well. Companies started realizing that all of the boomers who had been with the company for two or three decades all had like two years of vacation time saved up. And when that gets counted as a liability (because the employee can just fuck off and disappear for an extended period, while you keep paying them,) it was a big incentive for companies to begin limiting vacation.
Lots of the boomers were grandfathered in so they got to keep their vacation banked, mostly to avoid the “half of our entire staff just walked out of the all-hands meeting and put in for 2 years of vacation time each, because we announced we’d be clawing back any unused time at the end of the month” dilemma. But new hires get fucked with vacation time caps, and big limits on how much they can get paid out if they quit.
I’m talking about the time period where one person (with only a high school diploma) working 40 hours a week could reasonably support a family of three or four, with a modest house and two vehicles. And then after staying with the same company for 25 years, that person could retire and receive a pension (not a 401k that they had been forced to invest their own money in) which was paid for entirely by the company. Because pay wasn’t absolute shit compared to the cost of living.
your reasoning why you think boomers had unlimited vacation.
Strong domestic labor unions were able to establish contractual standards that became the national hiring benchmark. And the US was forced to compete with the USSR for international talent.
I never heard of anyone having unlimited vacation time until the mid 2010s. And then, those so-called unlimited vacations aren’t really unlimited. They are just a way to get accrued time off the books.
What a dumbass
Finding out if vacation days carry over or are use it or lose it is something you should inquire about on day 1 at the latest.
In Canada, it’s illegal to not have vacation days or have your vacation time paid out. I’ve never heard of it happening here because it’s so easy to prove or disprove that only idiots would do it. Don’t worry, many employers will screw you over in ways that are harder to track.
Real shit in Russia too. My dad didn’t take vacations for so long, that he couldn’t continue working until he finished his vacation.
So what do they do with your accrued vacation time when your employment ends? That’s what pay out vacation means.
You will have all your accrued vacation paid out when you leave. It will also be paid out if you don’t use it soon enough. At my current employer, you have a little over a year. It is also possible to have it paid out on every paycheck and you have to set it aside for when you want to go on vacation, since you won’t be paid then. Here’s what it’s like in Manitoba, I suspect it isn’t very different elsewhere in Canada.
So its actually not illegal to pay out vacation time then?
Why wouldn’t you paid when you go on vacation? That’s what vacation is. Its not unpaid time off.
Yeah, it’s legal to not require people to take vacation time here, but you still are paid for that vacation time, albeit in a way that makes it very easy for you to not have any money during your time off, especially if you’re already struggling financially. Our work culture is much closer to American than European, and I’m personally not a fan of a lot of it. But you will either receive paid time off or money in lieu with the option of having unpaid time off.
Why would you make fun of people for not knowing things?
There was a time when you didn’t know either.
Anon was probably told when he started his job.
Yeah, told in a 50,000 word contract that would take 6 lawyers to figure out.
Meanwhile the average person is just looking for a fucking job and doesn’t have the time to worry about what the contract says.
Sure, but of those 50,000 words, a tiny subset has to do with PTO or leave (and I’d bet that that section of the contract is specifically mentioned in the table of contents). Homie decided that he wanted to do something special with their leave time. Something out of the ordinary. Then, they chose to not ask their HR department, their supervisor, their co-workers, or consult their presumably readily available company policy archive to research for themselves whether their plan was viable.
I understand not wanting to victim blame, but, as presented in this story, this individual is a victim of their own negligence, and that is something that we can hold folks accountable for.
Yeah, we had our explained clearly in orientation, and it’s in the employee handbook, also available in orientation or the company handbook. I manage people, and if they ask me, I’ll pull out the handbook and show them. It’s not hard, there’s a nice table of contents and everything, and the relevant section is like 2 paragraphs.
In fact, I consult it periodically and find cool stuff that I wasn’t aware of (but also not relevant to me), like bereavement leave (apparently extra PTO if someone dies, and you get different amounts based on relationship), or our profit-sharing plan (X% of compensation to retirement plan, has a vesting schedule; separate from matching plan and bonus).
Read through your benefits, you might just find something cool. If not, at least you’re not doing your actual, boring work…
My current contract is one page long. But granted, it is based on a tariff that was negotiated by unions, so it doesn’t list all those details and just refers to said negotiation results.
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If OP has an employment contract and can read, then it’s entirely their fault. This is something that’s easy to check and is written down so that both sides are clear what the terms are. Even if they can’t read they should have asked someone to read it to them.
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A lot of companies don’t have a contract (mine just had an offer letter), but they’ll have a benefits description, which will have stuff like the PTO policy. Read that every so often, and do it on the clock.
Assuming it’s a true story.
That said, the vacation expiration rules haven’t always been around. They started showing up back in the 90s/00s, as accounting firms started counting these days as liabilities and businesses started trying to minimize how many days were outstanding on their books.
I did know a few public school teachers who did exactly this. They’d save up vacation for five years and then take a paid semester off.
Can’t do it anymore, but it wasn’t always this way.
Yup, it was a shift because unlimited vacation was from the boomer era where employers actually treated employees fairly well. Companies started realizing that all of the boomers who had been with the company for two or three decades all had like two years of vacation time saved up. And when that gets counted as a liability (because the employee can just fuck off and disappear for an extended period, while you keep paying them,) it was a big incentive for companies to begin limiting vacation.
Lots of the boomers were grandfathered in so they got to keep their vacation banked, mostly to avoid the “half of our entire staff just walked out of the all-hands meeting and put in for 2 years of vacation time each, because we announced we’d be clawing back any unused time at the end of the month” dilemma. But new hires get fucked with vacation time caps, and big limits on how much they can get paid out if they quit.
Lol what are you talking about
I’m talking about the time period where one person (with only a high school diploma) working 40 hours a week could reasonably support a family of three or four, with a modest house and two vehicles. And then after staying with the same company for 25 years, that person could retire and receive a pension (not a 401k that they had been forced to invest their own money in) which was paid for entirely by the company. Because pay wasn’t absolute shit compared to the cost of living.
And not once in that paragraph about everything except vacation did you explain your reasoning why you think boomers had unlimited vacation.
Strong domestic labor unions were able to establish contractual standards that became the national hiring benchmark. And the US was forced to compete with the USSR for international talent.
I never heard of anyone having unlimited vacation time until the mid 2010s. And then, those so-called unlimited vacations aren’t really unlimited. They are just a way to get accrued time off the books.
By unlimited vacation, they mean unlimited vacation banking. Like no use it or lose it policies or a cap on accrual.
In most countries stacking does work
But to not read what benefits you have, and not check your PTO balance for 4 entire years?
Well, in civilized countries you don’t need to check it, you just know it stacks.