Receiving both workers’ compensation benefits and holiday pay seems too good to be true. But in reality, there are ways to be eligible for holiday pay even when collecting workers’ compensation, our attorneys say.
If you’re currently receiving workers’ compensation benefits due to a personal injury in the workplace, and are planning to take vacation leave, don’t be too quick to assume that there is no point in expecting holiday pay from your employer.
Let’s figure out how to collect both workers’ compensation benefits and vacation pay.
Collecting holiday pay and workers’ comp if you’re a Union member
In most cases, if you’re currently receiving workers’ compensation benefits, any vacation pay would be credited against your compensation checks.
And it actually makes sense. Most employers would take a credit against an employee’s weekly compensation wage loss checks when he or she wants to use their banked vacation.
But if you’re a Union member and your employer has a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the Union, you may be able to avoid having the employer take a credit against your ongoing workers’ compensation.
In most cases, however, you will have to be legally represented by a Los Angeles workers’ compensation attorney in order to “activate” your holiday pay while receiving workers’ compensation benefits, as many employers may be reluctant to give out so much pay at once.
And more often than not, employers actually get away with it, as most workers in Van Nuys and elsewhere in Los Angeles usually don’t know their employee rights and rarely read their employment contracts. Speaking of contracts…
It’s also possible for non-union employees
You may be able to collect both vacation pay and workers’ comp even if you’re a non-union employee. You may receive holiday pay if your contract states that your vacation pay is calculated based on work performed for a certain period before the holiday, not after.
In these cases, it would be illegal for employers to credit against your workers’ compensation checks to prevent you from collecting both workers’ comp and holiday pay.
Generally, our workers’ compensation attorneys at Koszdin, Fields & Sherry advise examining employment contracts in order to figure out whether or not you’re entitled to both compensation wage loss and holiday pay.
Depending on the terms of an employment contract, some employers require workers to be performing their duties within 60 days of the vacation in order to be eligible for both holiday paychecks and weekly workers’ comp.
Other contracts, meanwhile, may set other limits that prevent employees from collecting both workers’ compensation and holiday pay if, for example, the worker was injured more than 30 days before the prescheduled vacation.
Get both holiday pay and workers’ comp with a lawyer
Our best workers’ compensation lawyers also say that some Union agreements allow employees to be considered an active employees even during his or her recovery from a work-related injury (while receiving compensation wage loss checks).
If an employee is considered “active,” it would be illegal for the employer to deny holiday pay even if the employee is already receiving workers’ comp.
As you can see, there’s no definite answer to the question “Are you eligible for holiday pay while receiving workers’ compensation?” that would be applied universally.
Much depends on your Union membership, the CBA agreement, and your employment contract. Let our workers’ compensation attorneys at Koszdin, Fields & Sherry help you examine your contract to make collecting both workers’ comp and holiday pay possible.
Call offices at 818-812-5639 or 800-747-3447 or complete this contact form for a free case evaluation
