Holidays are a great time to get together with family and friends. They can be joyful celebrations of happy times or remembrances of momentous occasions in our nation’s history. People often get time off from work to be able to properly observe national holidays.
But this isn’t necessarily the case for Californians. Did you know that California law does not require an employer to provide employees with paid holiday time off?
In fact, according to this article, the California Department of Industrial Relations states that “hours worked on holidays, Saturdays, and Sundays are treated like hours worked on any other day of the week.” Furthermore, California legislation specifically states that no business is required to “close its business on any holiday, or that employees be given the day off for any particular holiday.”
This not only means that employers can require employees to work on national holidays, but also that they don’t owe employees additional compensation for working during these holidays. However, companies are still mandated by law to pay overtime at a minimum of time-and-a-half to employees for working more than forty hours per week, and that includes time worked during holidays.
Conversely, employers can also shut down business on any holiday without compensating employees for the loss of a day’s work. With so many Californians struggling financially, this can be a significant loss to some employees.
But there are still things to be thankful for. If you work for a California company that does offered you paid holidays off, this means that it’s the employer’s policy, and is not mandated by law. The same goes for holiday pay (usually time-and-a-half). If you work for a company that has a paid holiday time policy, be sure to thank your CEO the next time you see him.
On the Money,
Sufen Wang
Wang Solutions
Wang Solutions 