Do you feel like your employer is squeezing the economic life out of you?

Just because you haven’t been laid off doesn’t mean you’re living on employment easy street. Lots of companies are scaling back on overtime, freezing wages and coming up with creative ways to downsize by taking money out of their employees’ pockets.

I’ve gotten a host of emails lately from workers sharing the latest hack and slash, everything from not paying 100 percent of a salary when an employee is on vacation to cutting back on the number of sick days provided. Another tactic is temporarily laying off workers and then reinstating them. This is something that went on often during the downturn in the 1970s. That’s what people used to mean when they said lay off — you were laid off a job until you were put back on. You weren’t actually fired, just put in a suspended state of employment.

Here’s one email that’s typical of what’s happening out there:

I was wondering if you know if it is legal for a company to make it’s employers sign something saying that they are about to get laid off and that all the sick time and vacation time the employees have will be used to pay us while laid off and that we will have to work to pay back the sick time and vacation time given to us if we don’t have any accrued?
Basically my employer said we will be getting laid off for about a week or two, They said we weren’t able to get unemployment until we were out of work for 2 weeks and since we will be back to work by then they want us to sign a paper saying if we have sick or vacation time we can get paid with it, and if we don’t have any they’ll pay us but we then have to work to pay them back what they gave us, so we wont accumulate any sick or vacation time until we have worked off what they paid us.
When a co-worker questioned this the boss then said to sign it or don’t participate, meaning if we don’t sign it we wont get paid.
Is that legal to make us give up our accumulated time or to pay it back if we don’t have any??

Unfortunately, much of what employers are doing in this regard is legal, but I figured I’d get some feedback from a real lawyer.

Mark D. Risk, an attorney that mainly represents employees says:

Though I obviously don’t know any of the facts and circumstances, it sounds as if the employer is trying to cope with cash flow problems and keep its workforce intact while minimizing the cost of unemployment benefits. I remind you that there is no guarantee the employees will be recalled in two weeks, though I am sure the employer hopes and intends to do so.

Though it may take a couple of weeks for their claims to be processed, the employees are entitled to unemployment benefits as soon as they are laid off. While the employer has unemployment insurance, its insurance premiums will be increased to reflect the claims paid. So the employer has an economic incentive to dissuade the employees from filing claims for unemployment benefits.

This explains the request that employees take a vacation instead of a layoff. The employer is saying “Business is slow now, why don’t you take your vacation (and other paid time off) now.” To those without any accrued vacation time, the employer is saying “I am giving you a paid vacation now, but going forward I am reducing your compensation — you will not receive paid vacation next year.” And the employer certainly has the right to reduce compensation on a going forward basis.

The employees might want to tell the employer “no thanks, I will take the temporary layoff and file for unemployment benefits, then take my paid vacation at some future time after I return to work.” But keep in mind that, now more than ever, employees need for their employers’ businesses to succeed – so they can be recalled from layoff in two weeks, so that there will be a job to return to after their vacation next summer.

While many of us want our employers to succeed you should know your rights when it comes to changes employers make to your job. Don’t just roll over and accept what your boss offers. It may be illegal, or you may be able to negotiate terms that work better for you.

Send me an email at telleve@gmail.com if you have specific questions.