Are you required to Pay employees for Chol Hamoed?

The boss has the right to lockout employees unless they have a contract. Locked out employees can collect unemplyment compensation for the duration of the lockout.

Forgetting legalities, I do see zahavasdad making a point, that maybe this person should keep his business open on chol hamoed in order to help his employees, or pay them for the time. It would be a nice thing to do.

Does he get paid by the week or by the job?

I pay my employees for the entire yom tuv although we are closed. I feel that this is what’s right. These people work to make a living.

zahavasdad, I used to be in the same boat. That’s what being an hourly 1099 employee means. however, if the employees work a certain amount of hours, the boss is not allowed to have the employees be 1099’s. He is legally forced to make them w2’s and give benefits.

one benefit w2’s are clearly entitled to is to not be double-taxed like 1099’s. Traditionally, w2’s do get benefits.

I heard that the B&H office is closed on chol hamoed but they give 15 days of vacation and you can use it as you please. Other frum companies have other policies. My recommendation is to find another frum employer who is a bit nicer about these things.

Dr. Seuss, it is clear that the poster has chosen to work for a frum company instead of a non-Jewish one. I made an assumption that he prefers working in a frum environment.

Working for a frum company usually has its benefits, like not having to deal with working on chol hamoed, tisha b’av and purim.

However the frum compaies I deal with, all pay even for the dates they are closed. Doesn matter if the empoyee is Jewish or not.

Situations such as these (no matter the religious affiliation of the employer or employee) are why an employment agreement should be in place.

I can emphasize with both sides.

I don’t know what your friend does or the type of business he works for. Perhaps it is the type of business where the frum owner doesn’t make much money either since very few people conduct this type of business on yom tov or chol hamoed and the owner can’t afford to pay employees when the business is not operational.

On the other hand, not getting paid for 2 weeks is not an easy thing to deal with either.

Has this employee spoken with the employer about their Rosh Hashana agreement and why the terms were changed?

zehavasdad — I don’t know where you have worked, but MANY non-Jewish employers are closed on non-Jewish holidays and do NOT pay their hourly employees for those days. Generally speaking my experience has been that hourly employees are never payed for days that the employer is closed unless they have some sort of vacation day deal in place. If there was no deal in place, your friend’s experience is pretty acceptable in the general world. If there was a deal (spoken or otherwise), that is a totally different issue that has nothing to do with Chol Hamoed. . .

For example my sister worked in the office of a non-Jewish company, and they were closed for many non-Jewish and legal holidays. She did NOT get payed for those days, but had the option to use them as part of her vacation time. Since she needed her vacation time (it was not many days per year) for the Jewish holidays she always lost pay on the non-Jewish hoidays.

My sister-in-law also worked for a non-Jewish company. Their policy was slightly different. They required you to use the week of Dec. 25, when they were closed, as part of your vacation days, even though they were closed. So if your deal with them included 20 “vacation days”, it really was only 15, as they counted that week against your deal.

As a previous poster said, the point is that hourly employees are exactly that — paid for by the hour that they work, whether the not working is by their choice or by the choice of the employer. (I do think it would have been more appropriate business protocol to inform the employees when they were hired as to which days they would not be working, so they can plan accordingly, but that is a side point.)