Any Lawyer Imas? Sick Pay Question

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amother

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:30 pm

Lawyer Imas: Is my employer allowed to conflate PTOs with sick days in NY?

I was sick and my employer said that for those sick days if I want them paid I need to take from my PTO.

I looked into the Dept of Labor website and it says that employers with more than 100 employees must offer 56 hours of paid sick leave.

TIA!

amother

Outerspace

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:37 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

How is your pto not sick leave?
Does the employer have to specifically call it that or just give you a minimum of 56 hours off and call it what they want.

amother

DarkMagenta

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:38 pm

PTO typically includes sick days. That’s why it’s “Paid Time Off” and not “Vacation Days”

amother

Vermilion

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:46 pm

My firm used to give 2 weeks vacation and 3 sick days. Now they just give 2.5 weeks combined PTO. Same amount of time off, just calculated differently.

amother

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:47 pm

Wow.
I'm amazed that you are all satisfied with this.

You really think that it's okay to take from your vacation days when you are sick?

Is this the law or are you just saying this?

amother

DarkMagenta

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:49 pm

Again, they aren’t vacation days. You’ve been lucky until now to be able to save them all for vacation by not getting sick

amother

Vermilion

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:49 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Wow.
I'm amazed that you are all satisfied with this.

You really think that it's okay to take from your vacation days when you are sick?

Is this the law or are you just saying this?

PTO is not vacation days. It's 3/4 vacation and 1/4 sick days. It is the same legal to have 13 says PTO or giving 10 days vacation and 3 days sick.

amother

DarkMagenta

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:52 pm

My DH just started a new job and in his contract it specifically says he gets x amount vacation days plus seven sick days to total y amount total PTO. I was wondering why it said that, this thread actually answered that question for me.

If you don’t get sick you are able to use your leftover sick days for vacation or whatever else.

amother

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 8:56 pm

So it is legal to do this? Wow. Just wow.
We are so behind other advanced countries. So a person only gets to take a vacation if they are not sick. Horrible.

amother

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:04 pm

Also there is a new law that was signed for NY for Paid Sick Days, I have an impression that most companies are still under the old policy.

Any lawyers, not employees, can answer?

amother

Outerspace

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:11 pm

There is no law that you get vacation. Only sick.
Having undefined PTO gives you more flexibility.

amother

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:16 pm

amother [ Outerspace ] wrote:

There is no law that you get vacation. Only sick.
Having undefined PTO gives you more flexibility.

Thanks, I'm just shocked. No vacation in this country per law? It's just nuts.

esuss

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:21 pm

Depending on how many days you were out sick you may qualify for short term disability. In my old NY job if we were out more than 5 consecutive days we could access disability benefits instead of PTO. Just needed a doctors note for proof. It was a large employer. Not sure if that makes a difference.

amother

Outerspace

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:22 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Thanks, I'm just shocked. No vacation in this country per law? It's just nuts.

Maternity leave is worse…

cupcake123

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:26 pm

OP your angry that your employer is not paying you to go on vacation?

amother

Seablue

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:29 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Thanks, I'm just shocked. No vacation in this country per law? It's just nuts.

Nope.
There Is no federal or state law that requires employers to provide paid or unpaid vacation time to employees. However, many employers choose to do so.
Would you rather your employer say you can only use your sick days if your actually sick? And if not, too bad? Their being flexible about it allowing you to use it as you see fit.

If you want more days, you can either negotiate it with your current employer or look for a new job.

Amarante

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:44 pm

It's really just semantics

Most employees prefer lumping all paid time off together so they don't have to claim to be sick if they want to take a day off and it's easier for employers to keep track of days off when they don't have to separate them.

How many days of PTO one gets is really no different than how good other corporate benefits are. In general large corporations have more total paid days off just as they generally have better health insurance and 401 retirement plans.

The issue really is how you are able to accrue time since traditionally designated sick leave would accrue from year to year so that you can "save" it in the event you really got sick whereas vacations were generally mandated to take every year so they didn't accrue.

Some of that is because often vacations accrued so that if you quit or fired you would be paid for accrued vacation days but not for unused sick leave.

There is no Federal law requiring any form of paid time off whether it is sick leave or vacation but some states do require some minimal amount.

amother

Darkblue

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:50 pm

Move to France. They have nearly as many vacation days as work days.

But really unless you’re sick a lot you should have enough days left to vacation.

Amarante

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 9:57 pm

amother [ Darkblue ] wrote:

Move to France. They have nearly as many vacation days as work days.

But really unless you’re sick a lot you should have enough days left to vacation.

I worked for a company that was bought by a large French multinational company and they sent over some French workers - we were all jealous of the better benefits they had.

On the other hand they smoked like fiends. Because they couldn't smoke in their offices I would see them all huddled outside all the time smoking their cigarettes.

nicole81

Wed, Jan 19 2022, 10:00 pm

Paid sick leave is paid time off. They are not unique categories under NYS law. It sounds like your employer is offering the flexibility of taking unpaid days if you want, which is they are not required to do unless you file for FMLA time. Weird to get upset at their flexibility.

Yes, the US is far behind other developed countries, and NY is particularly bad. I'm sorry that you feel duped🤷🏼‍♀️ Take it as a learning experience so you can better consider what to negotiate for in future roles.

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