My husband drunk text his boss going off about a coworker and how if he still works there my husband will quit. While I agree it's grounds for termination his boss decided to keep him on with the following conditons. 1. He takes a $2/hr paycut 2. He loses 2 weeks vacation (accrued annually/based on time employed) and was demoted (he was Shop Foreman)

My questions are: He received his disciplinary action today after taking a mandatory week of vacation. He gets paid Wednesday for the prior two weeks. Can they implement the pay cut on this check? Does he keep the vacation he's all ready accrued and from here forward only accrues 1 week annually or can they just take away what he all ready earned, charge him a week for the mandatory time off and now has none?

First question... Is he part of a Union with a Labor Contract?

If he's not... then yes they can... he could have been fired...

Usually unless they specified something different. It would usually take effect at the time he is disciplined.

Being its Still mid February... he hasn't yet accrued his vacation for the year... only a small part of it. Depending on when this happened... the rate he accrues his leave will be altered... to reflect the changes. So his new leave will be accrued over the 12 months it normally would be.

Any vacation that might have been carried over from last year... should remain untouched.

But if he took this years vacation... then he won't have any more... because in a month and a half... hes really accrued very little time.

Yes they can take it away from him, but why complain, he could have and honestly should have lost his job, so losing all of it, would be better than no job at all.

And remember he can still be fired if he complains about the agreement or does this type of thing again.

Did they also require that he enter some sort of program for his drinking problem.

Fr_Chuck... if you read my post, I wasn't complaining about the disciplinary action, I was asking if they could make it retroactive affecting time before the incident and before disciplinary action was received.

Drinking problem?? You assume too much and give advice that isn't helpful at all.

If a person drinks to the point - EVER - that they drunk text their boss, they have a drinking problem. Let's not be ridiculous. If he worked for me, he would have been fired.

I would not think they could dock already earned pay or vacation but could do so moving forward.

That said, I think he better start looking for another job while he still has a job. He's really on notice and they may just look for reasons to dump him at this point. Also, if he looks now and finds something before he's terminated, as this is his current employer, he will not need a good reference from them.

Once you've made this kind of a blunder, it's time to go while the going is still good.

You didn't answer the question of whether he is union or not. That is key here. I doubt seriously if they can take away vacation time that was accrued according to company policy. But the rest they can do, including making the pay cut retroactive.

I'm surprised you are saying they could make a pay cut retroactive, Scott. Can they really do that? It seems incomprehensible to me.

Only so far as pay checks have not been issued.