Please feel free to pass this along to employees.
Management is going to be coming out with decisions about leave requests for the next 6 months pursuant to the leave roster process (Article 31 Section D). This is how it is supposed to work:
Basically, management goes through the calendar starting with the 1st week of the 6 month leave period and looks for conflicts (i.e., more employees want a given week off or day before or after a holiday than can be granted).
If there is a conflict, employees are given the opportunity to exercise their option and take that day off or decline to take their day off. The employees highest on the list should be asked first because decisions are ALWAYS supposed to be made "in favor of and at the option of, the employee highest on the roster" (Article 31 Section 2D second bullet). Once you exercise your option and are granted the day off, you are to move down to the bottom of the roster.
Management is supposed to look for the 1st conflict period, and work their way through the 6 month period. Each conflict period (which could be one day - such as the day after Thanksgiving - or two weeks, such as the week before and after Christmas) is looked at. If the employee highest on the roster only wants the day before Christmas, for example, and another employee wants the whole week starting with the 22nd, the employee highest on the roster gets priority and gets their leave approved.
Beware, in some areas management has come up with a whacky interpretation of the contract, after 18 years of this roster process, that they can grant the leave request to employees requesting EARLIER dates than the day(s) requested by the employee HIGHEST on the roster and bypass the employee with the superior roster position. This is wrong. When there is a conflict, the employee highest on the roster always has priority over other employees lower on the roster requesting leave during that conflict period.
We recommend that you look at the roster and the decisions made by your management to assure they are making roster decisions properly. Note: Louetta Keene of Local 1164 just won an arbitration on this issue that was distributed last week. Some union reps that I know are having pre-emptive discussion with their managers to make sure they are on the same page regarding leave selections for the upcoming period to avoid grievances and problems. If employees believe their leave requests were improperly denied, they should see their AFGE union representative.
Charlie Estudillo, 1st Vice President Council 220 Website monitor by killerwebstats.com