Definition of a "week" - vacation

[beanbags]

Hi everyone,

So I started this new job 9 months ago (full-time - Mon - Fri) and I haven't taken a vacation day yet. I looked at my pay stub the other day as I was thinking about taking a vacation day and it reports that I have now accrued 7.5 days of vacation. I did the Math and that is a lot less than I thought I was getting.

So I looked at the offer of employment letter I got - signed by the boss. It says that I am entitled to (3) weeks vacation per year. In my mind, that means 21 days. I talked to my folks about it, they said that that actually means 15 days. I was a bit angry about this because when I agreed with the contract, I can remember thinking that 21 days was pretty good and I agreed to a slightly lower wage than I could have got. Now, in my offer letter, it does state "week" - not "work week" - just week. So I figure that is 21 days. No where in the letter of offer does it go into definitions. It also does not bind me to any other agreements - though it does say that I am expected to abide by the human resources manual. I looked at that, found no mention on the definition of a week.

Now, next week I want to tell the HR crew that I am getting too few vacation days accrued (seems like that are doing it at a 10 day period) and I want to let them know that it should be 21 days.

Is this a fair argument - or is there some sort of assumption I don't know about that says a week is actually 5 days. Do I have a legal argument in saying that I expected 21 days?

Any help would be great - thank you!

 

[cbg]

No, you do not have a legal argument of any kind.

First of all, the law does not define what a week is for purposes of vacation.

Secondly, a week for purposes of vacation is defined as 5 days in just about every company in the US.

I have NEVER, in 26 years of administrating employee benefits and participating in national surveys, heard of a single company or vacation policy ever, anywhere, that defined a week for vacation purposes as seven days. A vacation week is the same as a work week EVERYWHERE.

You're not going to get anywhere at all with your argument that you "assumed" - it was up to you to confirm.

You can expect to lose this argument. And if you push it too far, you just might lose your job.