Legal Question in Employment Law in California

There is no law that requires employers to provide paid time off to any employee. It is a benefit that may be offered by employers either as a policy or by contract. It is left to the employer to decide what level of employee it wishes to provide benefits to. If the employer wishes to provide paid time off to one class of employee but not another, there is nothing unlawful about that, as long as it is not done on a discriminatory basis.

However, once paid time off has been accrued, it is deemed earned as a form of wage, and cannot be forfeited. If you are saying you have earned some PTO but the company refuses to pay it because you were promoted, you may have a basis for a claim. You would have to consult with an employment law attorney for a more definitive legal opinion and to help you decide whether it is worth pursuing.

I don't disagree with Mr. Kirschbaum, but I think he is making assumptions that are not necessarily supported by your question. Specifically he is assuming that "paid time off" and "vacation" are synonymous. While some employers attempt to avoid the requirement that unused vacation be paid on resignation or termination by calling everything "paid time off" they generally just make a mess of things for themselves and are held to be calling vacation another name. So most well informed and advised employers use the term "paid time off" in lieu of "sick time." Since the employers are required to give time off under family leave laws for purposes other than the employee's illness, and since employees are happier if they have at least a few hours a year to take off for personal business, many employers have a truly non-vacation bank of paid time off available to employees, separate and different from the employee's vacation accrual. If that is what your employer does, and you are talking about true PTO, and not vacation or vacation disguised as PTO, then your employer has the right to strip the PTO and not give you any more at any time as long as it is not done in a way that discriminates on some illegal basis such as race, gender, age, etc.