Walmart - at will employment and holiday entitlement?

ovetta2001

My partner has an 'at will employment' type contract thing with Walmart. They have 3 weeks every year of their employment (based on their personal start dates). They are meant to take this before their next personal year starts. Walmart has a right to refuse holiday requests which is fair enough and in previous years if they refuse it and you missed the holiday they would pay you.This year my partners friends holiday is due to renew on the first of October. He applied for the last 5 days of his holiday and they refused it due to not enough man power. It now turns out that they can refuse holiday AND not pay you what you haven't taken.

Is this legal and if so what is stopping companies from just always refusing your holiday and not paying you?


Thank you

dramaqueen1973

Hiya

Im no expert and Im sure someone with knowlege will be along in a min but I think that they can refuse if it affects the business! Also If i dont take my holiday in the year I lose it and i dont get paid for it either im afraid. I may be wrong but that is how my company works.

I will keep an eye on thread too

Hope this helps
xx

RadoJo

Is there no stipulation in the agreement about refusing permission for holiday requests.
My husband's company has a similar arrangement, but they have limits e.g holiday requested 8 weeks or more in advance will be approved automatically (as that is how long they estimate it would take to ensure the workload was covered for that period), which means that they always have plenty of notice to make arrangements for cover.

Was your partner's friend refused any leave between now and October, or was permission refused for a specific period when there might have been other staff on holiday etc? It's not uncommon for workplaces to have rules that only one member of a department can take leave at a time to minimise disruption and then it's a case of the most organised gets their first choice!
I'm sure that they cannot refuse every request for leave between now and October - it seems unreasonable to claim that there is not enough man power within that entire period, so maybe it's worth your partner clarifying the guidelines about having leave approved?