Can employer take away our holidays? 01-04-2006

Our employer provided us with a calendar last year showing Christmas and New Years holidays this year to be Mondays. Just last week they decided to tell us that they are expecting from us to work those days. Is that legal?

Rita Risser replies:

Hmm, I'm beginning to see a bad trend here! Unfortunately, there may not be a lot of rights in this situation. When the company put out the paper that Monday is a holiday, that created a contract, but the company can change the contract IF no one relied on it to their detriment. For example, if someone bought airline tickets to return on Monday night, the company has to allow them to do that, but if you just were expecting the day but didn't make plans like that, then you would have to come in to work.

I suggest getting together with some of your co-workers and contacting the media. If the media likes this "Scrooge" kind of story, they might run with it. Then the company probably would back down.

Good luck.

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