Hi! I have been offered a severance package and I have a question about whether I am legally owed vacation pay.
I am currently working and will retire on the OMERS pension plan. OMERS has what is called the 90 factor”; it allows you to retire early with a full, unreduced pension as soon as your age + credited years of service totals 90. I am 57 years old and have 31 years 10 months of service, which gives 88 years and 10 months. I need 1 year and 2 months more of work to reach the 90 factor so I can retire.

My position has just become redundant. Management has considered my years of service and how close I am to pension and has offered to keep me on salary for two years, for which I don’t actually have to show up to work as there’s no work for me. At the end of those two years I stop receiving my bi-weekly paycheque and switch to pension payments. The offer seems generous because they are offering me 11 more months of pay than I need to get to the 90 factor. The offer letter that they gave me specifies that I will be paid for the 12 vacation days that I have banked right now. The letter does not specify that I will continue to earn vacation pay for the two years that I will remain on salary.

My question is; are they legally required to keep accumulating vacation pay for me while I am collecting salary but not actually showing up to work?

Considering that I get 11 more months of pay than they need to give me for me to retire without penalty, is it worth pushing for the vacation pay? I currently earn 30 vacation days a year. So that’s 60 days over two years, which is basically 2 month. The 11 months of free pay that I am getting is worth way more than the 2 months of vacation, so should I even push back on this issue