Paycheck Question

[onthemark]

I have a question about how my facility determines our pay but don't know where to put it on this site. Hopefully, one of you will see this and have an answer or suggestion for me:

During a 2-week pay period this summer, I used one week for vacation and in the other week, I worked a total of 5 hours overtime. When I got my check for this period, I saw that I was paid the 5 hours overtime but was not paid for 5 hours of my vacation. When I inquired, they said, "when a person works overtime and then takes time off, how do we know the person just didn't work overtime to make up for the time they were going to take off?" This response shocked me -- it doesn't make sense! -- but when I asked my co-workers about this, they said they'd been told the same thing and that they just accepted it!

I thought I was doing them a favor by accepting the overtime when asked, and never dreamed it would mean I'd be penalized for vacation time! Furthermore, I got permission months in advance for my vacation and I just don't see how I can be denied 5 of the hours because I helped out by working 5 hours overtime the previous week!

During a pay period in November, I see I'll have one vacation day but I was asked yesterday to work another day in that same pay period as overtime......so now I'm worried I'm not going to be paid for the vacation day!

Do any of you have this same policy in your facility? If you agree that this practice is unethical, do you have any suggestions for me? Thanks for any thought you put in to this.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

have you ever tried to get vaca time approved on short notice around the holidays?

I got that but this year isn't over so presumably these hours are still in her bank and available for use. Her employer didn't take them away as far as I can tell.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

have you ever tried to get vaca time approved on short notice around the holidays?

Who said anything about the holidays? It's October 17th. And I've never been denied vacation time. It doesn't sound like we're talking about taking vacation though, we're talking about 5 hours. And if it really came down to it, I'd arrange to have a family emergency that required me to leave 3 hrs into an 8 hr shift to use that time.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

We can't take a payout or work overtime the week we have vacation. No overtime can be accrued that week. If it is the next week then yes we get overtime unless we have a holiday or some other paid day.

[onthemark]

I've just read these latest comments. I don't think I can use the 5 hours because I work 7-3 -- an 8 hour shift -- and wouldn't have anyone to cover for me if I left after only 3 hours.