Hourly workers, whose employers decided to close shop for the holiday season and impose concentrated leave on the workers, experience the holiday season less festively: their salary is based on working hours, and they are not allowed to accumulate paid vacation days and therefore cannot use those to get paid during the holiday (in which businesses are closed). What about the reduced wages? How will they fund all of the trips and celebrations?
Hourly workers are not completely invisible! Here is what they are entitled to:
Holiday payment: hourly workers, who have been working for a single employer for more than 3 months, are entitled to workday payment for any Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot or Simhat Torah day that falls on a workday. Many employers attempt to evade holiday-pay duty by arguing that a worker is entitled to this payment only if they worked the day before and the day after the holiday. However, according to the law and court verdicts, if a worker does not attend work because of his or her employer’s initiative or with the employers consent – they deserve holiday payment! Quote us in case of opposition to this right.
A concentrated leave: the Annual Leave Law does not explicitly state who decides the dates of the employee’s annual leave. Verdict has interpreted this as the employer’s decision with coordination with the workers. Just like the employer sets the working days and hours of the employees, it’s the employer’s responsibility to set the annual leave dates of the employees (when the leave is longer than a week it needs to be announced at least 14 days beforehand). Meaning, the employer has the right to obligate the workers to take concentrated annual leave, even if the worker wishes to take it on different dates. And what of the workers without enough accumulated paid annual leave days? Is the employer allowed to impose days off on people without paying them salary? Reduce these days from future paid leave or force the workers to pay them out?
It is understood from law and verdict that an employer is not allowed to obligate a worker to take a vacation without pay, or write a negative leave days balance to a worker’s name, without the worker’s prior written consent. As a rule, when a worker is willing to work, but the employer will not allow it – the employer owes payment tor these days. Meaning, it is the worker’s right to object payless leave on these days and insist on working, and if the employer does not provide work – they are still required to pay for these days.
Stand up for your rights, insist on what you deserve, and enjoy your vacation and holidays! There are many workdays in October, and you can use the rest…
