Pay Rate on my Vacation?

[synystergates]

I'm just wondering about vacation pay. I got a vacation check and where it should say my current pay rate it reads N/A. Can anyone give me some info on this? I got my 20 hours of vacation pay and it came out to $171.90 gross which would make my pay rate about $8.59/hr. What's the deal here?

 

[trplnkl]

was the 171.90 before or after the deductions? What is your usually hourly wage?

 

[Kae3106]

Official answer: ask your supervisor to put in a payroll inquiry and payroll will explain how your vacation was calculated.

Quick answer from a payroll employee:
It depends on your local supplement. Some areas are paid 20/40/45 hours x rate for vacations, some are paid based on the average number of hours worked in the prior month, and some are based on the 1/52 rule. Just based on what you posted, I'm going to guess that you might be in a supplement that has the 1/52 rule. I've primarily seen the 1/52 rule in Southern California but I'm not familiar with the entire country's local supplements.

Here's how that is calculated: All of your earnings (excluding cashed out weeks) are added up for the 52 weeks prior to your earn date. That sum is divided by 52. The resulting total is what you are paid for your vacations that year.
Example: you earned your vacation on Feb 1, 2010. All of your gross earnings from 2/1/2009 - 1/31/2010 are added up and divided by 52. That is the amount you will get for your vacation. It's basically your average gross wages over a year.

The 1/52 calculation tends to come out higher than the normal hourly rate for full time employees who work a lot of overtime and lower than the normal hourly rate for part time employees who don't always get 20 hours each week. It will also be significantly lower if you had unpaid time off during the year as those weeks will calculate in as $0 earnings.

 

[browniehound]

I'm just wondering about vacation pay. I got a vacation check and where it should say my current pay rate it reads N/A. Can anyone give me some info on this? I got my 20 hours of vacation pay and it came out to $171.90 gross which would make my pay rate about $8.59/hr. What's the deal here?

Its a very simple answer. Your pay-rate is listed as N/A because you are not paid by the hour for your vacation. In other words, you're not paid 40 hours of straight time for your vacation.

Instead, you are paid (like the previous poster stated) 1/52nd of your previous year's gross income. It benefits you because it actually pays you OT on your vacation if you worked OT every week during the previous year as most drivers do.

If you averaged 45 hours/week, your vacation check will be for a check you would earn if you had worked 45 hours. Its a win-win situation for us. Instead of a week's pay at 40 hours X your payrate, we get a week of payrate= N/A of pay equal to what you would earn in a normal week driving at UPS.

Did I state that clear enough? Forgive me if I didn't because I might have just confused myself??????

 

[JonFrum]

Throughout New England part-timers get a guaranteed minimum of 20 hours pay for each vacation week; and full-timers get a guaranteed minimum of 40 hours pay.

But we also use the 1/52 rule, if it results in a larger amount, except that it is 1/52 of our previous calendar year's total pay. (Usually the total earnings on your W-2 Form.)

If a New Hire or a seniority employee didn't work the whole previous year, the weeks he had $0.00 earnings don't count. So someone who worked only forty weeks, say, would get 1/40th instead of 1/52nd of his previous calendar year's earnings. Thus he is not penalized for his zero earnings weeks.

When we were on strike against UPS in '97, we had zero earnings for those two weeks. I later filed a grievance to have our subsequent vacation pay calculated at 1/50th and not 1/52nd of our total '97 earnings, thus resulting in a higher vacation payout. Needless to say, I have been deeply troubled by feelings of guilt and remorse ever since.

 

[Kae3106]

Sounds like the New England negotiator was smart.

Just to clarify so I understand: in New England, vacation earnings are calculated on a true calendar year. So if a new hire was hired in March, the weeks he wasn't employed in Jan and Feb would not count against him and would reduce 1/52 to 1/44 (or however many weeks there were)? That makes sense.
Since the supplement I am familiar with calculates on earn dates which are tied to employment/FT dates and not Jan 1, there wouldn't be any weeks where the employee wasn't employed by UPS. If the employee was laid off, out on leave, or took unpaid time off, those weeks calculate in as a zero to reduce the overall 1/52. (I wasn't around for the strike so I don't know how it was handled but there are a couple of exceptions where the $0 won't factor in such as military leave.) There is no 20/40 hour guarantee....if your 1/52 calculates under that, that's just the way it is. If it calculates over that, great.

Browniehound: it's only a win-win for the FT employees with OT or the PT employees who get a lot of hours. We do see quite a few PT employees who end up with a vacation check that is less than 20 hours x their rate because they don't usually get to work 20 hours each week. The 3.5 hour daily guarantee (if they get it) would only give them 17.5 hours per week.

Once again, I'm fascinated by how much the local riders differ from area to area. I've only worked with one group that used 1/52 and we thought they were the oddballs. All of the rest of our locals are paid hours x rate for vacations though the number of hours do vary based on local.

OP: I hope this has helped. If you still aren't quite satisfied (it's hard to give you specifics when we don't know the details), ask for the payroll inquiry. You can even ask them to send you the history showing your wages and how your 1/52 was calculated. Good luck!

 

[JonFrum]

Like others, most New England part-timers are only guaranteed 3.5 hours per day, yielding a minimum of 17.5 hours per week. But they get a four hour minimum for holidays, sick days, and personal days (provided they are otherwise entitled to those days.) They make more money handling their package at home!!!

This is a holdover from the Good Old Days when part-timers received a four hour guarantee every day.