I am giving my notice at my employer tomorrow. On Wednesday, I emailed payroll and asked what my PTO balance was, so I could have an idea of how much my final check will be. The Vacation policy states that unused vacation will be paid out when an employee leaves, and that vacation is accrued "from their date of hire through the course of the year.” Payroll informed me that my balance was 25 hours. However, my calculation showed it to be more like 42 hours. The rate of accrual per pay period as about 4.5 hours a pay period, which is bi-weekly, and there have been 9 payrolls since I started. My start date was 11/10/09. I emailed the payroll clerk back about the discrepancy. She called me and told me the Director of HR decided that for the employees that started on 11/10 (which is everyone in my office, as my division was sold to this company on 11/10), it was too difficult for them to track the vacation starting 11/10, and so we only began accruing vacation on 1/1/10. They are therefore shorting every 18 hours of vacation pay, which is my case, is a substantial amount of money. I emailed HR and asked why my the employees in my office are not accruing vacation per the vacation policy and have yet to get an answer. When I give my notice tomorrow, I intend to send HR my calculation starting with the 11/10/09 start date accrual, and let them know that this is the amount of vacation pay I should be paid in my final paycheck. If they do not, do I have a legal recourse for unpaid wages for the number of hours they short pay?

Thanks!