Explanation of the Sick leave to Personal time Conversion
The CITY Human Resources & Labor Relations offices unilaterally designed and distributed a NEW conversion form mid-day Friday, Oct. 24, 2014. In that NEW form, it was stated that in order to receive Personal time benefit in FY 2015 the NEW form needed to be signed and submitted to Human Resources no later than Oct. 31, 2014.
AFSCME Local 2432 was not given advance notification of the NEW form nor did we have a chance to discuss or review the NEW form prior to its distribution to our Bargaining Unit Employees. As a result, there has been considerable confusion amongst the employees as is evidenced by the previous emails about this matter.
To make clear, the NEW contract increases the number of Personal days for the General Unit employees from 3 days per fiscal year to 5 days. For the Professional & Supervisory bargaining unit employees, Personal days were increased from 0 (zero) days to 5 days per fiscal year so long as they would have a remaining Sick leave balance of 96 hours AFTER the conversion.
Additionally, language was added in all 3 contracts that the Personal leave time conversion will be determined in the month of October. However, there was never a process or a form to facilitate the NEW contract language. So it appears that the form the City used to facilitate the Sick leave to Vacation time conversion was MODIFIED to facilitate the Personal time conversion. But again, this NEW form was not previously reviewed by AFSCME Local 2432. As a result of the confusion caused, we, Local 2432 had to address the issues with Labor Relations and Human Resources.
This morning, AFSCME President Chris Cassidy and Secretary Robert Strauss met with Labor Relations Director Raquel Elejabarrieta and Kathy Lopez-Negron from Human Resources, to discuss OUR concerns.
Our discussions resulted in several NEW changes.
it was AGREED to REVISE the form and eliminate any need for Supervisor/Manager/Director signature
it was AGREED the NEW & REVISED form would be passed out with this Friday’s paycheck distribution, along with RE-SENDING to divisional Admin staff to distribute (those forms already submitted are accepted and considered OK)
it was AGREED that the deadline to submit these forms would be EXTENDED to Nov. 14, 2014
So what does this mean?
Fill out the forms and submit by the EXTENDED deadline whether you intend to take Personal time or not. Things come up and you might find a need later on in the year.
This is NOT 5 additional days added to the PREVIOUS 3 days so NO, this WILL NOT mean 8 days.
General Unit employees may convert up to a MAXIMUM of 5 days. However, you must have the time on the books to convert. For instance, if you work an 8 hour day and want to convert 5 days, you must have 40 hours of sick leave ACCRUED. For 2 day conversion, you will need 16 hours ACCRUED.
If you work a 10 hour day, you will need 10 hours of ACCRUED sick leave hours for every converted Personal day. For instance, if you want to convert 5 days, you must have 50 hours of sick leave ACCRUED. For 2 day conversion, you will need 20 hours accrued.
PROFESSIONAL & SUPERVISORY Unit employees may convert up to a MAXIMUM of 5 days provided they have a MINIMUM (96) HOURS of ACCRUED Sick leave remaining AFTER the conversion.
This conversion DOES NOT affect the Sick Leave balances UNTIL those times are ACTUALLY used. ALL UNUSED CONVERTED PERSONAL TIME WILL REMAIN IN THE SICK LEAVE BALANCE.
The form is in PDF format and can be found here: Click Here