Legal Question in Employment Law in Pennsylvania

Re: termination

It's neither legal nor illegal. You must actually look at your contract and the employer's history. If the contract states that you must be given two months notice then that is the case. The employer can require that you leave the building at that moment and simply buy out your time without requiring you to work. Or, the empoyer could require you to work under specific conditions, such as from your home, another office or under supervision. For many reasons it is inadvisable for an employer to allow a terminated employee to continue to work in the normal manner. While most people are honest and would work diligently to the end, a few employees in such circumstances would take advantage of the situation to harm the employer, waste the time of other employees or foster dissent among the remaining employees.

The guiding rule about forcing you to use accrued vacation depends on how the vacation is recorded on the books of the company and how it accords such accrued time among all employees.

We'll ignore how the employer treats vacation on its books. That aspect is really only useful to litigation and we would like to avoid that. So look at how vacation is utlized among other employees. Does the employer have a policy about dealing with accrued vacation time for terminated employees? How about its treatment of other such employees? Have they been required to use accrued vacation time? And what about current employees, are the any circumstances where employees can be required to take vacation? In a company that had a shut-down period, as many companies do over some holidays then it is likely that those days are mandatory vacation days. If you don't have the time then you don't get paid for shutdown days. I am familiar with at least a few companies that require employees to save or buy vacation days for shutdown.

So, if you are treated as other employees have been treated then you probably will not have a claim. If on the other hand your employer treats you differently then you should pursue the matter.

That said, there is always something to be gained by negotiating at severance time.

Regards and good luck,

Roger Traversa

email: [email protected]