Forced to work holidays when not my scheduled days

My wife works in the guard shack at a private lake community. She works first shift weekends, every weekend(she works Sat & Sun 16 hrs every week), on time never misses, she has always worked any holidays that fall on the weekends for time and a half. After the fourth of July they told her they would not pay weekend employees time and a half any more for working holidays.
At times she fills in for other shifts during the week if they have vacation, etc. She used to work some holidays during the week for other people during the week when asked and would be paid time and a half. For cost cutting measures the lake manager is now making the full time employees who work during the week take off on holidays and is requireing them to schedule the weekend workers to work the during the week holidays without time and a half pay. They are threatening to fire any weekend employees who will not work these during the week holidays.
I presume they do not have to pay employees time and a half for working holidays? My question is can they fire a employee for not working a holiday that falls on a day that is not an regularly scheduled work day (ie. during the week)?

2 answers  |  asked Dec 16, 2009 8:09 PM [EST]  |  applies to Ohio

Answers (2)

David Neel
I concur with Bruce. A case would be very iffy unless you can tie religious beliefs into it and I don't think that's probable. Employers, unfortunately, can be unfair without any legal repercussions and unfairness seems to increase during times of high unemployment. Someone out there without a job would be happy to work a holiday and not get paid time and a half and the employer knows that. That's just the reality of the situation.

posted by David Neel  |  Dec 17, 2009 11:16 AM [EST]
Bruce Elfvin
An interesting question. There is no legal requirement under federal or state law that holiday pay must be time and a half. Even though premium pay for holidays is very traditional for many employers. The actual decision will come down to whether the employer can bully the part-timers into doing holidays during the week without extra pay and fire them if they refuse. This unfortunately sounds like something that really needs the collective action of the employees, maybe even a union.

A claim might make it in court but it is iffy in my opinion.

posted by Bruce Elfvin  |  Dec 17, 2009 07:15 AM [EST]

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