Question for the great legal minds here. Re: employee rights

[flatlander]

This was put out yesterday, at my soon to be former employer, that if you do not work your complete 2 week notice your " Benefit Leave" will not be paid out.
I will quote the employee manual, as I was told to look at, for reference.

" Pay out of benefit leave time:
A two- week written notice should be given upon voluntary resignation. Payment for accrued benefit leave will occur two weeks following the employee's final paycheck of regular hours. Employees whose employment is separated with less than six months of service will not receive a payout of any benefit leave balance they may have at the time of separation" Bold words are their doing.

Since I have been there over 10 years, does this apply to me? Since I have integrity, I was already planning to work my complete notice but I feel as though HR is again attempting to intimidate me. The question is, will I get all my B.L. if I don't work the full 2 weeks? The key word for me is "should". It seems a nicety but not a necessity but has no impact on my B.L. if I choose to leave before THE END. Opinions?

 

[Double T]

I am not a lawyer, but many places have a stipulation of finishing out your notice. Is it worth paying a lawyer and court fees over two weeks of work? Unless you are leaving for a hostile work environment, I think your best course of action is to finish out the two weeks. Also, feel lucky as if I leave I have to give a month' notice.

 

[AtTheMurph]

This was put out yesterday, at my soon to be former employer, that if you do not work your complete 2 week notice your " Benefit Leave" will not be paid out.
I will quote the employee manual, as I was told to look at, for reference.

" Pay out of benefit leave time:
A two- week written notice should be given upon voluntary resignation. Payment for accrued benefit leave will occur two weeks following the employee's final paycheck of regular hours. Employees whose employment is separated with less than six months of service will not receive a payout of any benefit leave balance they may have at the time of separation" Bold words are their doing.

Since I have been there over 10 years, does this apply to me? Since I have integrity, I was already planning to work my complete notice but I feel as though HR is again attempting to intimidate me. The question is, will I get all my B.L. if I don't work the full 2 weeks? The key word for me is "should". It seems a nicety but not a necessity but has no impact on my B.L. if I choose to leave before THE END. Opinions?

Payment for accrued benefit leave will occur two weeks following the employee's final paycheck of regular hours.

What's the problem?

 

[flatlander]

I agree but management put out something different in their statement. Just making sure I'm correct.

 

[Jaybird1980]

I believe the should means if you want to collect the BL.

My brother recently change jobs and found out they had a 6 week notice that has to be worked to receive the BL. To me that is to long

 

[PGRChaplain]

Sounds like they Reminded you of their Policy, I don't sense any Intimidation.

 

[bwframe]

 

[HoughMade]

Just a note- lawyers are cagey about giving specific advice through a forum like this. Usually, general principles and the types of issues or analysis that may be done is fine, but when it's a specific person with a specific issue, giving advice gets problematic.

Simply put, some as basic as answering a question like this may create an attorney-client relationship which could form the basis of a malpractice suit....and the lawyer never got paid. Also, a lawyer's firm may not be too happy with them if the firm is exposed to liability by informal conversation over the web, so a job may be at issue. There could even be firm rules about such things.

That being said, generally speaking, unless a person is a government employee or has a specific contract (individually or as part of a union), an employer may change policies at any time. This is part and parcel of employment-at-will. However, there are wage payment statutes and often, payment for accrued vacation or other accrued earning/time time will fall under those statutes. Long story short, the statutes are strongly oriented towards getting employees paid and punishing employers for not paying employees as they had agreed to.

Enforcing such things has been done through small claims courts, but a lawyer is always a good idea, even in small claims.