What's far and just?

It would be unpaid leave here, vacations and PTO are planned.

Are you sure it was actually your boss who made the decision? Any chance someone in payroll just goes by info in computers noting when you're logged into their network to determine your work days?

In reply to NOT A TA :

It was my boss. Possibly my boss and HR. I'll look into things. I just want to know, moving forward. 

The thing that bothers me, is what were you supposed to do? It isn't like this was something you planned and it isn't like there was something you could have reasonably done to log in and work. The whole fricken state was out of power. 

Again, that doesn't make it the companies fault or their problem, especially when they gave you an exemption to work remotely outside of normal practices. But it does annoy me. 

nocones said:

I would ask about an Unpaid time allowance / Leave of Absence where benefits carry but you don't get pay.  If you aren't' financially able to handle that then your only option is whatever form of PTO you have available.  

 

That said, Assuming you are Salary and don't' receive overtime I bet your company hasn't batted an Eye when expecting you to work 50+ hours in a given week on a special project, or as is more typical now Continuously.   If that is your work experience and after talking to your manager you still have to take vacation, I would suddenly no longer be available after 40 hours.. 

This is important- do you ever work more than 40 hours a week and not bill the company for the extra time spent after hours? 
Id probably fail as a small business owner because my instinct would be to call and make sure you were safe and ask if there was anything we could help out with. Not at all because I'm a good guy, but it's the neighborly way to act. And it's how most of us operated in the military. 
 

If I was astute- at the end of the call ask if you needed some work burden shifted to recover, so our projects didn't get behind. 

I was on the fence about whether or not they should have charged you vacation days until you  mentioned  you are salary.  That's the whole point of salary, they pay you the same if you work two hours or a hundred and two hours. Not only a dick moveon their part but shame on them for not valuing the amount of extra time you put in and paying you your regular amount.  Good luck

Many here are saying no work means no pay, I disagree. As an employer, I would have not made you use vacation days, especially if you're salary. I value my guys more than that. Salary means I'm paying you $x per year to get a certain amount of work done, in that year, I say it's a dick  move. 

For my work as far as I know, for remote our home is our duty location. They use that to determine locality pay as well. If we are under a state of emergency with a disaster declaration like that with power outages I believe we get paid leave based on conversations regarding a member of my team based out of Florida. (He's up and running online though)

I'm full time, but get paid on hours logged based on a 40 hour work week.

Salary?

Im gonna say they definitely should not have charged you vacation days. 

Note:

As an exempt employee, your employer is required by Federal law to pay you a full day for any day that you performed any work. 
 

Splitting hairs, but that actually means if you answered 1 email or 1 phone call or logged in to your work computer at all, you are due a full day's pay. 
 

I wouldn't argue the details that finely (because it goes both ways and could backfire on you), but that's the law for exempt employees. 
 

Your employer has chosen to classify you as exempt and pay you salary in order to avoid paying overtime. Which is fine, but he has to play by the rest of the rules too. 

Maybe I just have no idea how things should work, but when things are hard at the company--as in, extra events, tough deadlines--I expect our people to show up for the company. And when things are tough for our people--like a hurricane they need to go prepare for and then be with their families during--I expect the company to show up for our people. Life is a long strange trip, and if you don't allow for that with people, then it's far more difficult than it needs to be.

Margie

In reply to SV reX :

There are loopholes in those rules, at least for government agencies. I'm salaried but my agency requires me to punch in and out. Any day I don't complete a minimum of 8 hours I get docked the remaining time. 
 

We're open 24/7 so we're expected to be there regardless of conditions. If we aren't there we don't get paid. 

I was out all last week in the hospital and it didn't affect my pay, time,  or pto. They also sent me a $100 gift card. 
 

I have managed people and I would have never imagined not paying you for those days- especially salary, but potentially hourly. 

SV reX said:

As an exempt employee, your employer is required by Federal law to pay you a full day for any day that you performed any work. 

Furthermore, if an employer treats exempt employees as being non-exempt in certain ways, it can result in a court concluding that those employees were miscategorized as exempt in the first place. This can lead to significant financial consequences, because they're now liable for all of the back overtime that they didn't pay due to that miscategorization.

About 20 years ago I actually got several thousand bucks from a class-action lawsuit that others had filed against one of my employers based on this.  Initially I wasn't sure if I should accept it (at the time I liked that employer and didn't feel like they'd done me any wrong), but my options were to either accept it or to let the lawyers have it.

I am 99% sure that every employer I've ever had would have happily comped me several days to deal with a natural disaster on the scale of a this hurricane.

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to SV reX :

There are loopholes in those rules, at least for government agencies. I'm salaried but my agency requires me to punch in and out. Any day I don't complete a minimum of 8 hours I get docked the remaining time. 
 

We're open 24/7 so we're expected to be there regardless of conditions. If we aren't there we don't get paid. 

Not sure that's true. 
 

The FLSA applies to private sector, but also to Federal, State, and local governments. 
 

There are loopholes, but I don't think any of them have anything to do with government agencies. 
 

Just because your organization applies it a particular way, doesn't mean it's in accordance with the law. 
 

The FLSA is a very old law, and lots of organizations misapply it. 

I think there has been a lot of good advice on this thread. In my experience I agree with most of the legal parts that people have mentioned too. The issue with legal right or wrong is that is the nuclear option. You can't really recover the relationship once you call your lawyer and / or file a labor claim. 
To me this comes down to a question of respect between you and your employer. Is this a bad decision on their part? Absolutely, it is callous and will cost them more in ill will then they can figure on the books. Is this just an isolated incident? If yes I say write it off for your long and short term mental health benefit. If it isn't then you have some thinking to do about your next steps. 
Sorry your company stepped on you while you were down. 

Based on the OP I suspect the company doesn't have other remote workers. So they may not have experience dealing with remote worker situations.

I'm glad you didn't lose your house DrBoost. I think your plan to give it a couple weeks to collect yourself (and hopefully get utilities back) before talking about it is wise.

Are you able to work right now- or does every day mean more PTO taken?

Indy - Guy said:

In reply to DrBoost :

Seems pretty clear cut to me.  Did you work those three days?  ( I think you answered no )  If no, then you shouldn't be paid for working those days.  Either use vacation (paid time off) or take the days unpaid.

 

Yes, but...  More than once over the last 30 years, there was enough snow fall that we were told to not come to work.  And work was operational at the time- they had power, people who lived close, etc- but for the safety of the employee, they gave us the day, and didn't call it a vacation day.  

To me, this is very much like that- the employee could not work because of circumstances beyond their control.  Heck, even if they tried, the lack of internet would have prevented any work.  

So I don't really see it as cut and dried.  If the employee is as important as companies constantly say they are- how about protect their safety when the situation is dire, or if they have no way of working- call it something else.

Then again, I've come to think that the whole idea of "employee is the  most important asset" is just propaganda.

Advancing upwards is hard working remote but I have basically unlimited pto.   I'm pretty lucky. 
 

but we sure do travel And word hard. Grew a business 550% last year. 

alfadriver said:

Then again, I've come to think that the whole idea of "employee is the  most important asset" is just propaganda.

Sadly, I'm coming to agree with this. 

Marjorie Suddard said:

Maybe I just have no idea how things should work, but when things are hard at the company--as in, extra events, tough deadlines--I expect our people to show up for the company. And when things are tough for our people--like a hurricane they need to go prepare for and then be with their families during--I expect the company to show up for our people. Life is a long strange trip, and if you don't allow for that with people, then it's far more difficult than it needs to be.

Margie

Quoted for truth.

I closed the company Friday of the storm. The winds were high enough to make it dangerous to be driving around in it. 

Everyone got paid except me. It probably cost me $3k or so to shut down for the day. I will make that back and then some in employee satisfaction and loyalty. I don't track it but at a guess, paid time off, not including vacations and holidays probably costs me $10k to $15k per year. That comes straight out of my pocket. I consider it money well spent. 

My admin got stuck at JFK overnight on the way back from vacation due to a canceled flight. She didn't make it to work the next day. Even though she had already used all of her PTO, I paid her for it anyway. It costs me a little in the short term, but in the long term, it's well worth the expense. 

Edit: Following the letter of the regulation isn't always the right thing to do. A company is made of people. A good company is made of people who know the company cares for them and the people care for the company. 

When hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, some of our locations were destroyed. The company continued to pay the employees for the following years until the hospitals were rebuilt.

This guy ☝️ Knows how to treat people. Good on you mate.  
 

Id think this would pay off in loyalty and as Margie said, sometime you need to ask a little more of your people. They will remember when you were good to them. Also, reduced turnover, reducing training costs etc. 

I'll agree that the way a company treats its people will have a direct impact on employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction has a direct impact on employee performance. Employee performance directly impacts customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction directly impacts profits. 

Unless they monitor your work time down to the fart, just roll with it and take a few undercover days off here n there to balance it out.