Pregnancy Leave

Q: Looking for some feedback regarding pregnancy leave and paid company holidays. If an employee takes pregnancy leave, and while on leave the company observes paid holidays (for example, the company closes from Christmas Eve until after New Years and it is a paid leave for all associates). Are those paid holidays added to the pregnancy leave? Is this a policy decision for the company to make or does this create any conflicts with employment laws? Our company is small - 11 employees. We offer unpaid pregnancy leave up to 4 months. Any feedback would be great as I am trying to update our handbook accordingly.

A: Eleven responses:

We state in our policy that employee must be active to receive holiday and vacation pay. I recommend reviewing your policy and speaking to your attorney on how to word it going forward.

Having a policy that says employees are not paid for holidays if they are on unpaid leave would clarify. You should not treat pregnancy any different from any other unpaid leave in this regard.

Since you are not required to offer FMLA/CFRA, anything besides disability leave is at the discretion of the employer. During Pregnancy Disability Leave, they are not receiving Holiday pay. If you offer this unpaid leave, it is at your discretion - just make sure you follow the same rules as any other leave you may provide.

At our company (350 employees), employees on a medical leave of absence during a scheduled company holiday, are not eligible for the holiday pay. They are still eligible for disability pay during that time. The only portion of the leave that is paid is the disability portion - 6-8 weeks. Employees can choose to use their PTO to supplement the disability, or use it when the disability portion is exhausted.

When I was at my last company, we also closed for the December holidays - company paid. We did not pay the EE on LOA for the holidays during this closure time (which was consistent w. our LOA policy) but we gave them the unpaid time on the backend of their leave (which is more generous than what is mandated). So no issues with PDL. So no $$, but they got an extra 5 days of unpaid time off on the backend of their leave. We were public and the LOA policy was approved by outside counsel.

If an employee is on a leave of absence, he/she is not paid for holidays that occur within the time they are on leave. Doesn't matter to us whether the holiday is one day or the entire December shut down: they are on leave so not entitled to get paid for that time. You may need to check with SDI (state disability) to determine how extra pay (eg: holiday pay) would impact the disability payments.

Here is a draft that hasn't been reviewed yet by our attorney: To be eligible for holiday pay, the employee must have worked the normally scheduled work days prior to and following the holiday unless a vacation or sick day(s) has been pre-approved. Employees on leaves of absence are not eligible to receive holiday pay should a holiday fall during the course of their leave of absence. The course of a leave of absence is defined as the dates between the start and actual return-to-work dates.

We state in our policy that employee must be active to receive holiday and vacation pay. I recommend reviewing your policy and speaking to your attorney on how to word it going forward.

As you know, the Calif SDI covers apprx 55% for 6-8 weeks. Then PFL would cover apprx 55% for an additional 6 weeks. 12 weeks of partial pay is really good! In my opinion, adding on the holiday pay at the end may be too generous. I wouldn't recommend it. Plus, it might open up issues down the road with consistency if an employee is sick on a holiday - they may request to use holiday pay on another day they want to take off. Or, if an employee wants to use holiday pay for a religious day, they may try to waive another holiday to swap the two.

That is a company issue that would be outlined in the handbook. So for example, in the section of the handbook relating to leaves of absence, you would identify if employees on leave of absence would continue to accrue vacation and/or sick time. You can specifically outline that holidays that fall during the employee's leave of absence shall not be paid.

My company provides holiday pay to employees on leave that are receiving pay during that leave. For example, an employee begins leave in mid-November and uses sick leave to off-set state disability leave pay. Since they are receiving pay from the company we will pay them the holiday pay. If they are not receiving any pay from the company and only collecting state disability we will not pay them holiday pay. Employers are not obligated to provide holiday pay at all even to full time employees, so it is strictly a company policy issue