Can I Please Have Some More, Sir – Advancing Vacation Benefits Under the Service Contract Act

Abrahams Wolf-Rodda – Under the Service Contract Act (“SCA”) and applicable law, employees are entitled to paid vacation time as specified in the prevailing wage determination (“WD”) attached to the US Government service contract.  Typically, these WDs specify one or two weeks of vacation after one year of service with the contractor or any predecessor contractor, and sometimes more vacation benefits are provided in the WD for additional years of service. This ordinarily means that new employees (i.e., those who have just been hired to work on the SCA covered contract and who were not employed by the predecessor contractor), or employees who recently had a break in service, are not entitled under the SCA to any vacation benefits, or any pro-rated portion thereof, until they complete one full year of employment, the entire benefit vesting on the anniversary of their employment date.