There is no law that a Virginia employer must provide benefits like paid vacations, paid sick leave or paid holidays. It is strictly up to the employer whether or not they will offer these benefits.

Under both federal and Virginia minimum wage laws, an employer must pay employees for all hours worked. However, currently there is no law that requires the employer to pay workers for time that the employee does not work, such as holiday pay or sick pay.

This may change in the very near future. A bill introduced in Congress in early 2009 would require employers to offer paid sick leave to workers. However, there is no guarantee that the mandatory sick leave bill will pass. Such bills have been introduced several times in the past, without passing.

If a Virginia employer has a written policy of offering paid vacations, holidays or sick leave to employees, the employer must honor that policy. In many states, the department of labor will enforce the employer’s policy. In other states such as Florida, the employee has no choice but to sue the employer in small claims court  to enforce such policies.

Several states including Illinois, Massachusetts and Louisiana require that terminated employees be paid for unused vacation. Those states do not require that the employer offer paid vacations to employees. However, if the employer does provide paid vacation time to workers, the employee must be paid for any unused vacation at termination.

In other states, if the employer has a written policy stating that they will pay terminated workers for unused vacation, the employer must honor that policy. A few states presume that the employer will pay terminate workers for vacation, unless the employer specifically has a written policy that states otherwise.

Regardless of the employer’s vacation policy, it should be enforced consistently. An employer who enforces a vacation or benefit policy sporadically can face a lawsuit for illegal discrimination.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 5:31 am and is filed under Labor & Employment Laws, Vacation 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.