Many workers believe that they are automatically entitled to take paid time off work on holidays. This, however, is an incorrect assumption. Most employees in California are given time off work on holidays, but employers do not legally have to give you this time off.

If your employer does agree to give you this time off, they do not have to pay you. Though in reality, many employees are paid for time taken off for public holidays, and indeed many businesses shut down completely on these days.

This article looks at how to find out whether you are entitled to take time off holidays and, if so whether you will be paid for this time off and whether there is a maximum amount of statutory holiday time that you, as an employee, are entitled to.

California does not have to provide Thanksgiving off

All the employers should have to provide holidays that are religious to their employees who may include: Christmas, Independence Day, and also New Year day. It is major for the employers to observe their religious beliefs. However, it is not the duty of the employer to give some extra payment as thanks for the work you are doing on regular unobserved holidays.

No extra payment for work done on federal holidays

Under the laws of California, it is not the duty of your employer to pay you anything extra for the work that you do on federal holidays. What you are entitled to is the payment for working your eight hours, any overtime after 8 hours in a day and also over forty hours in a work week. You may be lucky if your employer has an agreement with employees that they should be paid extra in such situations.

Your contract of employment will stipulate what your holiday entitlement is and whether you are, as part of your terms and conditions of employment, permitted to take time off on holidays.
Employers should give accommodations for religious reasons

In some situations, employees may not be able to work on special federal holidays for religious reasons. In such cases, the employer must give the necessary accommodations for their employees for their individual religious observances. Such accommodations should be critically analyzed for specific cases by the type of the business and the accommodation itself

In some, situations, the government occasionally grants an additional bank or public holiday to celebrate a special occasion (such as the Royal Wedding for UK workers.) If your employment contract is not providing you with the information you need with regards to your right to take time off on holidays, you should speak to your human resources manager for clarification.

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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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