Can an employer in California take away the remaining vacation as a disiplinary action.

This answer assumes you are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement (contract) between a labor union and your employer.

It depends on what you mean by "remaining vacation." If it is vacation you have already earned, then no, the employer cannot take it from you. In California, vacation is considered wages that are earned proportionately as the employee works. For example, if an employee is entitled to 10 days vacation per year and works 40 hours per week, then usually the employees earns 0.039 hours of vacation per hour worked (80 hrs. vacation divided by 2040 work hours per year = 0.0392156 hours vacation earned per hour). More simply, the employee will have earned 5 days of vacation after working 6 months; 2.5 days of vacation after working 3 months; etc.

If you are talking about unearned vacation, the employer can probably do this. Vacation is a benefit that is voluntarily offered by an employer; it is not required by law. Employers can provide benefits to some employees and not others, or not provide any vacation to anyone. However, an employer cannot deny or limit vacation for an illegal reason such as due to an employee's or group of employees' race, sex, age, whistleblowing, etc.

posted by Marilynn Mika Spencer  |  Oct 29, 2016 2:36 PM [EST]