just got screwed over at work

[artoodeeto]

Well, it's mostly official - the company I've worked at for the last (almost) 5 years is going out of business. Remains to be seen whether they'll be bought by someone or just fold, but we were just told today that everyone is being changed to hourly from salary and cut to 20 hours a week, starting tomorrow. Mind you that's not a guarantee I'll actually *work* 20 hours a week, I only will if there's enough work to be done. And my upcoming 9 days of vacation time for a trip to Italy? I won't see a dime for that vacation time, company doesn't have the money. Needless to say, I'm pissed. The writing's been on the wall for awhile, and I started getting a resume out there, but I honestly thought there'd be a little more warning time than this.
Gonna go to an unemployment office tomorrow and figure out my options for the near future....any other comments/suggestions are welcome!
On the plus side, at least I have all the materials to finish my sandcrawler mod. Just haven't been in the mood to work on lately with how bad work's been. :mad:

[BuzzKillington]

I'm pretty sure they legally owe you that 9 days.

[diluzio91]

^agreed... even if they file bankruptcy they have to pay it out... (at least in WI, dunno if thats federal or state law though)

[TheGreatSatan]

Yeah, I believe that is the law. Any idea on how much money the bosses are getting?

[Drum Thumper]

Just like everyone else says, they gotta pay you your Vacation. Pretty certain that's a federal law.

[x88x]

I'm sorry to hear about the end of the company. Good luck with the job search. If you suddenly decide to move to the other side of the country, let me know and I might be able to help. ;)

[artoodeeto]

thanks guys - my direct supervisor, one of the VP's of the company, suggested suing the owner when I told him they weren't going to pay me that vacation time. I need to figure out if it's worth it, but really the problem is that they don't have the money for it. at all, as far as I know. The owner let things go way too far before trying to do anything about it - layoffs were happening recently that should have happened a year ago at least.
As far as the bosses go, if the company gets bought I'm assuming some of them will probably migrate over to the new one. Nobody *really* knows anything. Basically, I'm considering myself without income pretty much from this point until I get unemployment or another job lined up. And it's not like I can eliminate discretionary spending...there's not much I can do to lower my expenses. Guess it gives me incentive right?
Oh yeah, and to confirm what y'all said above, I just found this:
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_vacation.htm