Contractual obligations

amother

OP ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:42 am

I'm looking for opinions here, when someone starts a new job, and working on chol hamoed is made clear from the start, how is it fair to come back to your employer and say that you cannot work on these days point blank.

To clarify, I am not the owner, but also an employee.

watergirl ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:54 am

I have an extremely generous PTO package. Like it's way more than I can use in a year, and some rolls over, you get the point. I don't work for frum Jews. There are a number of PTO blackout days on the calendar and there is also a hierarchy in the office of who gets first dibs at popular PTO request days. This is all explained in the employee handbook for us.

So if this person OP is talking about came in knowing that chol hamoed are PTO blackout days, failing to come into work is not acceptable.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:55 am

watergirl wrote:

Thank you so the question is how do I explain that to people!

amother

↑ OP ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:59 am

watergirl wrote:

Is it stated anywhere that there are PTO blackout days?

Unfortunately not, but the company's not too keen and allowing an entire team to just disappear. And especially the ones who already maxed out on their PPO and just expect to not show up and not get paid.

↑ watergirl

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:05 am

amother OP wrote:

I'm not sure what your roll here is. But the management is letting this happen if they don't put a policy in writing.

I will say this - I once worked for a frum company and I was the only Jewish person on my level, which was not the top or even near the top. The higher management was all frum. I had no PTO at all, and I had to work on chol hamoed. It was a horrible feeling to be the only Jew in the office when all the other Jews took off.

The concept of being a nice boss and just giving the time off is important.

If the company can, they should close on chol hamoed or give each employee bonus paid days off, so if they need team members there, it would be a rotating day off so everyone gets to do a chol hamoed trip, etc. And then team would not all be gone at one time, but everyone would feel heard, seen, and cared about.

justforfun87

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:09 am

amother OP wrote:

In the non-heimish professional world people can get written up for missing work. Do you have a policy like this?

amother

Peach ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:11 am

The answer is that it is not acceptable as those were the agreed upon terms.

What if the situation were to be reversed and the employer had said that certain days could be taken off as part of the job negotiated and then reneged on that.

I don't know how one would handle it in terms of whether you want to terminate an employee. I might be inclined to do so if this was a new employee or relatively new because I would have serious doubts about their ethical standards and wouldn't want to invest much in training or keeping them around.

I would suggest that your company implement a very clear policy in terms of how days are taken off and when the requests must be made and the priority in which multiple requests for the same day be made.

My friend worked for a company which oddly didn't give the Friday after Thanksgiving off which is extremely rare in a secular company. However, they needed at least one employee from her department to be there so it was rotated and of course people were free to swap so long as the necessary person was available.

Conversely I worked in an industry which essentially shuts down between before x-mas until after January 1 so many companies in my field shut down completely because there is no point in having people come in to twiddle their thumbs and so it is an easy benefit to give people - this is in addition to their standard PTO

Figure out how what makes most sense to proceed but no company would find it acceptable to have a whole department or a significant number of people take off at the same day when a company is still operating normally.

amother

Plum ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:21 am

There are serious halachic shaalos to keeping a business open or working on chol hamoed. It’s not so simple. Everyone must ask their Rav, esp the business owners! My husband was told not to leave his business open. He answers emails and takes occasional calls but the office is closed. His Rav was very firm about it, it’s considered a part of YT.

Yes, there are exceptions, yes she should have spoken up before, yes it wouldn’t be fair if others have to work and she doesn’t but don’t assume everyone is just as okay with it as you are.

amother

↑ Peach ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:30 am

amother Plum wrote:

This is completely irrelevant to OP’s question.

The new employee agreed to these terms and the appropriate and ethical thing would be to state they couldn’t work on those days just as frum people advise they must leave early on Friday or can’t work on Saturday.

If she had a specific halachic issue then she should have brought it up because it is nit universally held.

At any rate, it is irrelevant since the new employee agreed, they can’t renege on that and it appears they were being deliberately deceptive.

amother

↑ OP

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:35 am

amother Plum wrote:

Okay this was exactly message I was waiting for! This is the feedback I'm getting from them. I'm curious to hear your point of view - is it better to get fired for not showing up on CH? Or working to support your family /learning husband?
I'm not a rav, but I'm struggling to understand why a rav would not allow someone to work if they know that there was a good chance they will lose their job.

And again this is not my decision I'm just an employee in the company that's watching this unfold.

amother

↑ Plum ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:36 am

amother Peach wrote:

Sounds like this is a very large heimish office in a community where it’s mostly not acceptable to work on chol hamoed (ex Lakewood). This is why there are many “people” that OP feels the need to explain this to. It wasn’t one.

So yes, it is relevant, if you live in a community where most of the community holds as I wrote above.

↑ singleagain

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:36 am

amother OP wrote:

Have you been an employee longer than them like would you be the Jew working and they're the Jews not working because that's an issue also I think.

amother

↑ Peach ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:38 am

amother Plum wrote:

Again, this should have been discussed when the employee interviewed and was told she had to work.

She lied and was deceptive.