Holiday Pay and Unions: Tracking

The rules to track and pay vacation time vary greatly across the U.S. For some, Holiday pay is mandatory in the bargaining agreement. For others, the company pays its key Foreman as an additional benefit.

Some of the most common questions we get involve ‘missing’ hours and pay on a union report due to how Vacation and/or Holiday pay was entered in the 5-2-2 screen. Knowing what you need to report and how the various choices flow through to the reports will save you some headaches. When paying Vacation or Holiday time for union staff, there are a couple of things you need to think through before you make the entries.

• Do you need to report these hours to the union? Are they part of the bargaining agreement?
• Do you owe benefits and dues as usual, or are these modified for vacation/holiday?

Let’s take these one at a time. If the benefits and deductions are the same as any work day, and you report holiday or vacation pay on your regular union reports, you’ll use your regular paygroups. Only use type 1-Regular, 2-Overtime, or 3-Premium time in the Pay Type. This allows all the rules to flow through and all the hours to show up on the union reports.

For those of you with modified benefits or deductions, but they still end up on your union report, you’ll need separate paygroups. Usually we see these as separate paygroups for the Journeymen and Foremen at their regular hourly rates, then on the Benefits tab, enter the benefits and/or deductions that apply when paying vacation or holiday pay.

For those of you that pay key union members for holiday and vacation time, but are not required to report to the union, set aside benefits, or have modified or no deductions, you have a few more options. We recommend a separate paygroup to reflect the lack of benefits and/or deducts, but you can use Pay Types 5-Vacation or 6-Holiday for tracking. This will update the Vacation ‘buckets’ in the employee screen for tracking, and holiday pay is reported on various Employee reports.

To recap: If you are mandated to pay Holiday or Vacation pay and report these to the union, only use Pay Types 1-Regular, 2-Overtime, or 3-Premium (NOT Vacation or Holiday). Then consider if you need modified paygroups to reflect benefits and/or deduct changes for these special hours. Lastly, if this is voluntary and does not need to be reported on the union report, but needs to be available in an audit, use the modified paygroups and pay types 5-Vacation or 6-Holiday for tracking. —CMW