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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

You would not normally be paid for accumulated vacation time so I’m not sure why they’re asking for this other than they have enough combined social media presence to make management capitulate.

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I'm not sure what "normally" is. I've always had vacation time paid out when leaving, though at jobs that have multiple categories of time off, sometimes one category gets paid out and one doesn't.

This is always disclosed up front. In this case, did the company claim they were going to pay out and then they didn't? Or did the company never claim they would, but the ex-employees are "demanding" it anyway?

Every job I've had has paid accrued PTO/Vacation when being let go or even leaving on your own will.

Every job I’ve had does not pay accrued PTO no matter how you left the company. Most states do not require companies to pay out accrued PTO.

You've had some pretty worker-unfriendly employers then? I too have been paid out unused PTO by every company I've ever worked for (and my current company pays it out too), and I've never worked in a state where doing so is unfriendly.

Yes I have and very glad I left. My current employer will pay you out if they terminate you but not if you leave voluntarily.

Well that's a silly and expensive policy. It means that people take long vacations as they're leaving -- but they haven't quit yet, so the company's still on the hook for employment taxes and health insurance. It'd be cheaper for them to just pay it out and then get the employee off the payrolls.

In Canada you pay 4% towards your vacation each year so it is paid at the end regardless.

Can you explain how this works? What do you mean you pay 4% towards your vacation? Like the employee contributes 4% of each paycheck to some sort of escrow account?

The employer pays it for both part and full-time workers. The rates differ by province, but generally this works out two weeks of wages for the first few years with an employer - they can increase this if they want but that's the legal minimum.

In practice this just means that you can take two weeks and still get paid. You can forgo your vacation in some instances, but you still get paid out the vacation money. I used to do that when I worked part-time in college and was short of cash for whatever reason.

Ontario's rules - https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standa...

Sounds like a good option but I like having the ability to roll over a part, if not all, of my PTO. Sometimes people just take off at the end of the year because they have to.

If you accrue PTO it's usually paid out but if you have allocated PTO given on a yearly cycle I don't think I've ever seen that paid out.

That screwed me when I changed jobs last year actually and I lost 3 days of pay that I didn't take.

It depends on how it is earned/allocated, I suppose.

PTO that is earned over time, as part of your pay period, is a form of compensation to be expected.

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