Boy, have you opened a can of worms, at least where MA is concerned.
MA law considers vacation time to be wages. While an employer is not obligated to provide paid vacation, if he chooses to do so any earned vacation time belongs to the employee absolutely and cannot be lost.
However, the MA Atty General's office, which functions as the DOL in this state, several years ago issued an opinion paper in which they indicated that a use-it-or-lose-it policy WAS possible if the employee is given x amount of time to use the time and they fail to do so. Thus creating a great deal of confusion among MA HR managers.
A close reading of the opinion paper shows that they are not interpreting the phrase, use it or lose it, the way most HR managers would. Your average HR manager, in MA or out of it, would interpret that phrase to mean that any time the employee has not used by such and such a date was lost forever. As is, if the time earned in 2004 is not used by March 31, 2005, it's gone as if it had never been.
But that's not what our glorious leaders at the State House meant. What they mean by the phrase, use-it-or-lose-it (and I have this direct from them in a phone conversation) is, (following through with the example above) if the time earned for 2004 is not used by March 31, 2005, the employee will earn no more additional time (he will cease earning his 2005 time) until he has used the time already in his bank.
It is unclear whether you are the employer or the employee. If you are the employee and believe that your employer has illegally taken your vacation time away, contact the AG's Fair Consumer and Labor Hotline (or something like that) at 617-727-3476. (I think that's the number - if you call that number and it's the wrong one, post back.)
If you are the employer and you are having trouble getting your employees to take their vacation time because they're trying to save up huge blocks of it, I feel your pain. I've had that problem at more than one employer. (Never understood it personally - I want to USE my time.) I solved it by putting a policy in writing and making sure the employees saw it; "the maximum number of days you may have in the bank at any given time is xx. Once you have that many days in your time bank, you will not earn any more until you have taken some. If you only use one day, then when you have earned one more day you will again cease accruing time. If, on the other hand, you take five, you can continue to earn time until you've gained those five back. But under no circumstances will you be allowed to keep more than xx days in your time bank".
This policy does pass muster with the AG's office; I cleared it with them before putting it into practice. It may or may not be semantics - several of my employees, and my boss, thought it was. But if it is, it's semantics that allows us to limit the amount of time an employee can keep on the books (since it shows as a liability) without violating the law.
