Bait & Switch or Harrassment? Earning Vacation Hrs

[GeneticPanda]

Jurisdiction

Illinois

When I got hired at my company, I was told that at 6mo, we would recieve 40hrs of vacation and at 1yr, we would get an additional 80hrs. Every year after that, we would get 80hrs on the anniversary of our hire date. This follows what it states in our company policy/handbook. We are able to use our vacation hours for sick days provided the department manager approves.

Recently, I found out that my coworker was written up. We are alloted 4 unpaid sick days per calendar year. She was sick for 5 separate days and requested to use her vacation hrs. She had just hit her year mark and was supposed to be given 80hrs vacation. She was denied it for 2 days, approved for 1, then denied for 2 more days. Since she had used 3 of her unpaid sick days earlier in the year, this put her at 5 sick days and required a write up and HR rep decided to put her on 6mo of probation.

The HR rep explained that vacation hrs are accrued at 6.67hrs/mo and her requests were denied because she didnt have enough accrued vacation hrs.

Is this a bait & switch situation since everyone was told we get it on our anniversary and its in the policy but suddenly she says we don't? Or is this harrassment towards my coworker since everyone else gets their vacation but she's the only one that has to accrue it? And what can we do about it?

 

[cbg]

Do you understand that "bait and switch" has absolutely no meaning in employment law?

Do you understand that what happened with your co-worker has nothing at all to do with you?

There could be a dozen different reasons, all of them legal, why your co-workers situation is the way it is and because some of those reasons invoke privacy laws, no one is going to explain it to you and we don't have enough facts about those potential reasons to form an opinion.

 

[ElleMD]

It sounds like your leave accrues each pay period, not that it is awarded lump sum at the beginning of the year. That aside, employers may still require employees get leave properly authorized and may write up those who do not. It does not matter one bit if the employee has the time available. The employer still has the ultimate say in when it may be used and when leave use is excessive. Since this isn't about you, you probably don't even have all the facts about this other employee's situation.