For those that don’t know many government employees have the option of taking paid time off instead of time and a half pay when they work overtime. For example, if I worked an extra 8 hour shift I can choose to received 12 hours of pay added to my paycheck, or I can take 12 hours off paid at a later date. It’s a sweet deal for those that want more time off than their vacation allotment, and it also costs tax payers less if employees take comp time instead of the payout, as long as their comp time absence doesn’t create more overtime.
It was my understanding [per a past union rep] that the law said employees could accrue up to 240 hours of comp time and any overtime after that had to be paid out until the banked comp hours were used, AND employees have 26 pay periods (1 year for us) from the date comp time is awarded to use it. If not used within that time it gets paid out. It’s always been run that way and was that way during my first career, also a government position.
Out of the blue my current employer started a policy that unused comp time will get paid out on January 1st and July 1st. Meaning if I worked overtime over Christmas I’d have less than a week to use the comp time.
This doesn’t sit with me well at all, and as usual our union rolled over and played dead.
I’ve searched both federal law and State of Wisconsin law but have not come up with what I’m looking for:
Under either federal and/or Wisconsin law is my employer legally entitled to cut the comp use time limit?
Thanks in advance for any answers you can give me.
It’s been a while since this applied to me, but I think the one year worked the opposite of what you said . IOW, I don’t think it’s that employers must give you a year to use the comp time, but rather that they can’t make you wait more than a year to get paid if you were unable to use it.
I suspect whether it’s cheaper than OT or not depends on the details - I’m pretty sure my multiple months , comp-time maternity leaves during which all my benefits continued and I continued to earn leave time actually cost more than paying me time and a half when I worked the OT
Meaning if I worked overtime over Christmas I’d have less than a week to use the comp time.
In my experience, this doesn’t happen quite that way. There’s a lag and all OT worked prior to Nov 1 will be paid on Jan 1 or something similar. A week just isn’t enough time.
I’m not a government employee nor in WI. But I am union.
We used to have a similar arrangement to bank unused paid vacation into the future where you could let it build up and either buy your way out of workdays or take the extra value as cash whenever you wanted.
Along about 2015 or so a Federal law changed on how they have to account for and tax the value of benefits gained in one year but deferred for consumption in a later year. IIRC the dividing line was that you could earn value in year 1 and take it in year 2. But holding value from year 1 into year 3 was now prohibited; All value earned in year 1 had to be paid out or consumed by the end of year 2.
That ended one of our most flexible good deals.
What you’re talking about is much more severe. Forcing your comp time bank to zero every 6 months sounds like something done at management’s convenience to simplify their bookkeeping. For darn sure carrying comps across the annual budget cycle can be a legit issue if the total balance becomes a material amount of their total payroll.
The union rollover is, sadly, far too common. Time to file grievances
No, that’s not right. I did find some legal stuff that said employers can’t force employees to take comp time over the pay, and comp time accrual has to be paid out when requested on the next pay period. That’s the nice thing about having comp hours accrued, if you find you need extra money you can have some or all of it cashed out.
I can see why employers wouldn’t want employees keeping comp time banked beyond a year. If they kept it for years and years and then cashed it out it would be paid out at a much higher wage than when it was earned. But what I’m trying to find out is if there is anything in the law that allows them to shorten the time below the one year standard.
But that’s exactly what’s happening here. I worked OT on Xmas Eve and day and was told it was going to get paid out unless I took comp days off on December 27, 28, 29, or 30th (the 26th was already an off day and the 31st was a holiday so if I took it off it would be paid as a holiday off). So I had less than one week to use it as paid time off.
I’m pissed about it because I usually work mega overtime during the holidays and get my 240 hours banked to use during the year in conjunction with my vacation time.
I think there might be a little talking past each other here - what I was trying to say is that it’s generally impossible to pay for all overtime worked up until Dec 31 on Jan 1 or within a couple of days after. It takes time for the fact that the OT was worked to get to payroll etc. Unless you work for a tiny agency, it either has to be all overtime worked prior to some certain date is paid on Jan 1 ( or the paycheck that includes Jan 1) or your comp time balance is reset to zero on Jan 1 and the payment for those hours will be reflected in your first paycheck in Feb or some such thing.
Anything worked up to December 31st was paid out on the next check unless there was time to take it. They made an exception to the time getting to payroll as long as your supervisor verified you worked it. Which is why I was able to burn the comp I earned during Xmas. Otherwise, you’re right, usually you can’t take comp that hasn’t posted yet.
The entire thing is bizarre and i’m thinking something legally isn’t kosher.
Can management legally have whatever comp time program they want, including none at all? As long as they’re not stealing dollar value, sure.
Can they unilaterally change your terms of employment? Sure. Except to the degree your union is able and willing to stand up for the terms of the existing written agreement or past practice as the case may be.
I totally agree you and everyone similarly situated is getting screwed. But I doubt you’ve got a legal claim here. Were you employed by a state agency there may well be state regulations governing how state agencies handle overtime, comp time, etc.
If, based on your experience, you have reason to believe there may be such state law or regulations that would apply to your city / county / whatever employer, the next logical move would be to contact an employment law attorney in WI for a free or low-cost consult. They’d know pretty much off the top of their head whether such a law or reg exists. And how successful any fight you’d care to start might be.
I spent a lot of years as a senior union official. With only so much total ammunition to use on management, often the smaller problems just become one more entry in the long ledger of nonstop management chiseling that we could not and cannot adequately address.
Sadly, an ineffective union (on any single topic, much less on every topic) can be worse than none. As a general matter of law a represented employee is limited to asking the union to address their problems with management; you generally can’t pursue independent legal action alongside what your union should be doing on your behalf.
You can sue your union for non-performance, but winning that is a very tall order. The union has (legitimately) a lot of discretion in which problems are addressed and which are not. It’s only gross discrimination against one or another group of workers that typically results in a verdict for the workers against the union.
Yeah, those are requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. And while the employer must pay out unused comp time by the end of the 26th pay period, there’s absolutely nothing in the FLSA that requires your employer to wait that long. If they want to do it in 6, 12, or 18 pay periods that’s their prerogative. What I’m guessing is that someone in payroll said, “This is a real pain in the ass. Can we do something to make the bookkeeping a little easier?”