Employers are not required to pay their workers for sick time in Montana or anywhere else in the nation. Montana law does not require it, nor does federal law.

Offering paid sick time is completely the choice of each employer. The only exception applies to those companies with a union contract which requires paid sick time for its employees.

Therefore, when an employer has offered paid sick leave in the past and suddenly decides to cancel it, that employer is completely within its legal rights. How that program is canceled can make a big difference in how the employees accept the change. Companies don’t want their employees to “suddenly fall ill” and use up all their sick days prior to the cancel date, but at the same time workers feel they are “owed” that time.

A company might revoke its sick leave policy with short notice to avoid paying wages for persons who simply want to take that time as vacation. If the company cancels paid sick leave without notice, or does so retroactively, employees may have a legal basis for complaint. Too much lead time can cost the company quite a bit in wages paid for time off. It can be a fine line for an employer to walk.

The point of paid sick time is to provide income coverage when an employee is too ill to do his or her job. Employees do often “call in sick”, however, when they really want a day off, or are simply “sick” of the job. This can be a reason for the employer to cancel a paid sick leave program.

Usually a company will announce that after a certain date, workers will no longer accrue paid sick time. Some companies will exchange their sick leave/vacation leave program with Paid Time Off or PTO. Under this leave program, the employee may take time off for any reason at all, for illness, for vacation, or for just a break. The worker does not have to be ill, or pretend to be ill and “call in sick”.

Last 10 posts by Tamara

• Louisiana Employee Privacy Act - April 20th, 2011
• FMLA 101 – Mississippi Maternity Leave - April 19th, 2011
• Florida Overtime Update - April 18th, 2011
• Delaware Paid Holidays - April 15th, 2011
• North Carolina Employee Privacy Act - April 14th, 2011
• Wisconsin NLRA Poster Requirement - April 13th, 2011
• Ohio Maternity Leave - April 12th, 2011
• Georgia Overtime Update - April 11th, 2011
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 am and is filed under FMLA - Family Medical Leave Acts, Labor & Employment Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.