For Some, Holidays Have Had Lousy Timing

Question: I work at an investment bank. We’ve been told that because Christmas and New Year’s Day both fall on Saturdays, there will be no paid days off over the holidays. This doesn’t seem right, especially this year. With all the hype about the new millennium, it seems as though we should get some extra holiday time. This feels like a slap in the face.

Aren’t there any laws that require employers to give their employees either Friday or Monday off when a legal holiday falls on the weekend?

Answer: It seems Grinch-like, but many workers will actually get less paid time off this holiday season because of the way the holidays fall on the calendar. Companies have broad leeway to establish their own vacation schedules because no federal laws require them to give any kind of paid leave at all. Most companies do it voluntarily because it’s such a popular employee benefit.

It’s a little unusual that an investment bank would want its workers on site the Friday before Christmas, because financial enterprises typically follow the schedule set by the stock markets, and both the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange will be closed that day. Both exchanges will close at 1 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.

This year, about 10% of employers are declaring Dec. 24 a regular workday, while about 88% are letting workers have at least part of the day off, according to a survey by the Bureau of National Affairs’ Human Resource Report. Many workers got a little more time off last year because the two holidays fell on Friday, giving back-to-back, three-day weekends to many people. (Federal workers get both Fridays as holidays.)

The most common policy among U.S. employers this year is to grant three or more paid holidays at year’s end, the survey found. About seven of 10 employers are encouraging their workers to ring in the new year more vigorously by permitting them time off with pay on Dec. 31. Most of the rest will ask their employees to work the normal schedule.

It could be worse: Because of Y2K concerns, many workers are being asked to work straight through the holidays, including Christmas and New Year’s Day. Service and maintenance staff and technical workers are most likely to be asked to work, but many managers are being asked to be available should problems arise.

Some lucky people, on the other hand, will find themselves with plenty of time for revelry. At about 12% of workplaces, employees will be off for a week or more--with pay. These include academic institutions, when classes are shut down, and manufacturing operations, where many workers needed to work production lines take time off anyway.

Mike Carter, a compensation and benefits expert with the Hay Group, an international management consulting company, said many companies deal with the problem of calendar vagaries by giving several days’ worth of floating holidays, which workers can use as they see fit each year. He said it probably makes sense for employers to be somewhat lenient about scheduling at the holidays because “the reality is that productivity is probably not that great anyway.”

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Q: Several years ago, I met a woman from Hong Kong at a convention in San Francisco. She’s smart and beautiful, with a master’s degree in statistics. She got a six-month visitor’s visa and moved in with me. Then she returned to Hong Kong, but she wants to come back. I’d like to marry her, but she doesn’t want to until she finds a job.

For a while she worked here as a student intern, but it was an unpaid position. What papers does she need to be able to work?

A: Federal immigration policy remains a constant source of political controversy, which has led to a dense thicket of complex rules and regulations governing the temporary and permanent visa programs controlling worker entry. “It’s very complicated, and it gets more complicated all the time,” said immigration lawyer Elliott Lichtman.

Some kinds of employees, including technical workers, farm workers and domestic servants, can obtain temporary work visas if they are sponsored by employers who can prove they need their skills and that they won’t displace American workers. Refugees, parents and children of current legal residents, and those in some specialized professions that require unique skills, can get permanent visas. In addition, about 50,000 people are selected by an annual lottery to enter the country.

Elaine Comis, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said if the reader is a U.S. citizen, he can petition for a fiancee, or K-1, visa on behalf of his girlfriend, which would allow her to enter the United States and work here. The only hitch is they must marry within 90 days. If they do, and a hearing examiner confirms it is a legitimate match, she can apply to become a U.S. citizen after three years, which would allow her to work here for the rest of her life, regardless of marital status.

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Kirstin Downey Grimsley can be reached via e-mail at downeyk@washpost.com.