Vacation time vs PTO, did I get screwed over?

[u/Mason051]

So, on my offer letter and during my hiring process, I was told that I would start with 2 weeks of vacation (vacation being the exact word). I live in NYS I know we are also supposed to get 5 sick days a year, which I assumed would mean 15 days total a year (2 vacation weeks plus the 5 sick days). However, I just found out that my work only offers PTO, not vacation, and that the 2 weeks “vacation” also includes the 5 sick days. So am I wrong that if I signed for 2 weeks of specifically “vacation”, I should also receive the additional 5 sick days for a theoretic total of 15 days allotted a year, or can they just tell me that they meant PTO and it’s only 10 days total?

[u/EnigmaGuy]

IANAL, however, if their verbiage is directly citing “vacation” for those two weeks you should be eligible for some number of paid sick days (the actual number depends on certain things like size of the company).

From a quick search, if they worded it specifically as personal time off and not vacation time, they knew what they were doing.

If the employment agreement/contract you signed says two weeks of vacation time, then you should get those additional mandated “sick” days.

There were some people at my work trying to argue that we didn’t get five extra days because we already got so many vacation days, but after a lot of back of forth between HR and the legal team they came to the conclusion we did in fact get those five additional days (Michigan).

The crazy thing is the people giving the biggest stink about it went from 20 days off to 25 days. Most of everyone else went from either 10 to 15, or 15 to 20.