working moms that are salaried employees and have PTO....

KDR1979

I work part time and am a salaried employee. I get a PTO bank every year that is for my vacation, sick and education time. My company is small, less than 50 employees (so they can do whatever they want usually). I took an extended maternity leave that my boss was okay with. I wanted the leave to be unpaid, but they insisted on paying out my PTO time to me. I argued this with my boss and at the time he said, "Well, it's either unpaid now or when you need it, so just take it unpaid as needed when you come back." This means that I would have had zero PTO time left for my 1st eight months back to work (PTO renews July 1). Luckily, the office manager missed that I hit an anniversary, so my PTO bank should have been bumped up a week. So, that left me with the equivalent of one week of PTO for a period of 8 months until my PTO bank renewed (not much for a mom with infant twins, DH works full time, is the breadwinner and has a demanding job).

So, OF COURSE, my mom (the babysitter) got sick for 2 weeks, the babies are on their 3rd week of being sick and I woke up sick one day this week. I had to leave work 3 hours early one day when my mom was sick (back up babysitter couldn't stay the whole 10 hours I needed her for). So, my boss charged me 3 hrs of PTO for leaving early.

 So, now he seems to forget that he said that I could take unpaid time off and they are saying that there are rules to salaried employees and how they are paid for time off. So basically, they are saying that I can't take ANY time off after my PTO bank is gone (I have 2.5 hours left). I feel like I should be able to take unpaid time off if needed for illness or babysitting emergencies! These issues REALLY (hopefully) shouldn't come up too often. They even said that they could not pay me for a week of work so that I could have a week of PTO back that way. Sounds stupid to me, but I really don't care as long as I can take care of my family when these situations arise.

Another salaried employee confided in me that she is having similar issues. Her father is sick with cancer and she has needed time off and she told me that our office is doing some illegal things. She said that a salaried employee cannot be deducted PTO time on a day that they came in and worked most of their shift (like the day I worked 5 of 8 hours but then had to leave for babysitting issues).

Does anyone know more about this? Do you know of any resources I can go to for more information?

Thanks!

Manateearmz

If you've worked the majority of your should count as an entire day and you should not have to take any PTO. 

You might want to check into something online to verify what the laws are regarding salaried employees. 

kmpls

What a nightmare. They should not have made you use your pto for leave. I would post this on working moms board for suggestions.

I would get a new job if possible. 

corrado2

Hmm, this is a tough one since your company is small and therefore, is not covered by FMLA (If it is smaller than 50 ppl) which I think would allow you to take unpaid leave if your family was sick.  Does your company have written policies that say unpaid leaves are not permitted.  Did you happen to have any discussion in writing over email about using your PTO vs unpaid leave on your maternity leave.  If you did I think that I would use those as leverage.  It's really hard as a working mom when you have limited flexibity.  It's a tough situation to be in.  I understand because there are just times when you seriously can't get any other help.

 If I were in your shoes, I would probably try to identify if you need to look for a job with more flexibility (If possible).  Otherwise, I would probably try to ride it out until July and get more backups if possible.  Once July hits it sounds like you will be in better shape. 

JaimeG183

as long as your PTO comes in hours not days, I don't see why they wouldn't deduct the 3 hours that you left early. That makes sense to me and seems legal.

Do you have an email about the maternity leave? I'd be mad about that