California Holiday Vacation Law
Most employers are not aware that they are not legally required to allow their employees take holiday off. However, in order to boost productivity and retain employees, California employers offer vacation as a benefit of employment.
Employers who choose to offer vacation must follow certain guidelines. In California, accrued vacation is considered as a form of wages that have been earned by an employee. This means that it cannot expire and should be paid to the employee upon termination of employment. The same rules applies to paid time off.
Generally, vacation accrues with time as the employee works. Therefore, if the vacation policy allows for ten days of vacation every year, he or she can accrue five vacation days in six months. But employers can designate a wait period at the beginning of the employment before vacation days begin to accrue. Usually, the wait period correlates to 90 days but it can be as long as the entire first year of employment.
Though California does not allow use it or lose it vacation policy where the accrued vacation should be used within a certain period or it is forfeited, employers can place a cap on the accrual of vacation days. This means once the vacation days reach a certain number, they stop accruing until they are used up. This helps employers to maintain control over accrual of vacation days and prevent employees from getting unreasonable amount of vacation time.
California law allows employers to give vacation days to a certain group of employees and not others as long as they do not discriminate against gender, race or religion. For example, vacation may be limited to the managers only or full time employees.
Sick leave is not subject to the same rules as paid time off and vacation days. As of July 2015, California employers should provide a reasonable number of paid sick days per year.
California also observes legal holidays at which time the government offices are closed. The official federal holidays are: every Sunday, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, admission day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, December 25, Good Friday, Lincoln day, President’s Day (Washington’s Birthday) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
However, California employers are not legally required to pay employees when they close for business of legal holidays. If an employee works on official holidays, they are paid their usual rates unless stated otherwise in the employment policy or when the employer works in excess of 40 hours a week. Saturdays and Sundays are also paid the same rate as weekdays.
Additionally, California law does not require employers to close their businesses during official holidays or give their employees day off on such days. Weekend or holiday days are paid at the discretion of the employee and according to the employment policy.
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