I'm a salaried employee at a large Fortune 500 corporation which limits year-to-year carryover of vacation time to no more than one-week. Almost every year there is some project that is due at the end of the year and my manager asks everyone not to take vacation time and says that we can make up any vacation time that is officially lost due to the carryover rule off-the-books in the following year. This year, given that there has been continuing lay-offs, it is not impossible that I could be laid off before being able to use any "unofficial" vacation next year. I would guess that if I can prove my manager made such statement, that the company would be obligated to pay me for the unofficial vacation time if I was laid off. Is this true?
Assuming the answer is yes, is there anything that would stop the company from reducing the amount of any severance (which is voluntary) by the same amount? In other words, they may offer everyone 4-weeks severance, I complain about my 2-weeks of unofficial vacation time, and they say, OK we'll pay you for that vacation time but we'll reduce your package to 2-weeks severance.
