Absence With Pay (Part 21)

Section 21.2 - Vacation - (Part 2 of 2, C-10 through C-14)

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C-10 Employee Requests for Vacation

Negotiating Units:

• Administrative Services Unit Article 10.4(b)
• Institutional Services Unit Article 10.12(a)
• Operational Services Unit Article 10.6(e)
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Services Unit Article 12.7(b)
• Rent Regulation Services Unit Article 12.6(b)

Effect:

If an employee in the Professional, Scientific and Technical Services Unit or the Rent Regulation Services Unit submits a written request for vacation, the employee is entitled to a written response within a reasonable period of time, but if the request is denied (or the vacation is cancelled) and the employee files a written request for a written statement of the reasons for such denial (or cancellation), the employee is entitled to such written statement within three days of receipt of his/her written request for it.

If an employee in the Administrative Services Unit submits a written request for vacation which is denied, the employee is automatically entitled to a written statement of the reasons for the denial within five (5) working days of such request. That is, once an employee has submitted such a written request for the use of vacation, the appointing authority is responsible for supplying the reasons, in the case of denial, within five working days, without any further requests from the employee.

If an employee in the Operational Services Unit properly submits a written request for use of vacation, such employee shall receive a written response within five (5) days of receipt of the request. This response requirement applies to both approvals and denials of employee requests to use vacation. There is no requirement that, in the case of a denial, reasons be included in the written response.

The procedures in this OSU article apply in all cases except where local labor/management arrangements on vacation scheduling made pursuant to this article provide for alternate procedures. The five-day response requirement may not, for example, apply to situations such as that described in 10.6(c) which provides for the establishment of annual periods within which an employee must request a block of time in order to have his/her seniority considered. (See Section 21.2, pp. C-12 - C-14 of this Section on vacation scheduling.)

TM-6 - No Substantive Changes - January 1991

C-11

An employee in the Institutional Services Unit, who submits a written request for use of leave credits, shall receive a written response within six working days, including reasons if the request is denied. In addition, an employee who has not received a response at the end of four days after making the request to use leave credits has the right to appeal to a designated management representative who then is responsible for ensuring that the employee receives a response within two days of the appeal. The contract article states that the management designees at each location were to have been identified within 60 days of the execution of the 1985-88 ISU agreement. This provision was continued in the 1988-91 ISU agreement.

The provisions of this article in the ISU agreement are applicable to all requests for use of any leave credits with the following two exceptions:

1. Requests for vacation time off submitted according to agreements reached pursuant to Article 10.4, Vacation Scheduling.
2. Requests for holiday time off submitted according to agreements reached pursuant to Article 10.1, Holiday Scheduling.

For all units listed above where reasons for denial must be given, these written statements of denial or cancellation need not be any more explicit than is necessary to indicate the basis therefore--it is not intended that they be so lengthy or explicit as to serve as "proof" that the denial or cancellation was absolutely necessary or essential to the proper conduct of agency business.

Failure to provide the written statement of the reasons for denying an employee's request for vacation may be grieved as a contract grievance. However, the denial itself say be grieved only as a non-contract grievance.

TM-6 - No Substantive Changes - January 1991

C-12 Vacation Scheduling

Negotiating Units:

• Administrative Services Unit Article 44.2
• Institutional Services Unit Article 10.4
• Operational Services Unit Articles 10.6 and 10.7
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Services Unit Article 12.6
• Rent Regulation Services Unit Article 12.5
• Security Services Unit Article 14.1(d)
• Security Supervisors Unit Article 14.1(d)

Effect:

For employees in the Administrative Services Unit, seniority as defined in Article 44.1 of the ASU agreement shall be the basis for scheduling vacation "where there is no distinction between employees with respect to factors relevant to the ability of the employees to perform required duties and responsibilities satisfactorily, or subject to the operating needs of a department or agency or component thereof." In most instances, therefore, seniority will be the determining factor in scheduling vacations.

For employees in the Institutional Services Unit, seniority as defined in Article 44.1 of the ISU Agreement, and for employees in the Operational Services Unit, seniority as defined in Article 44.1 of the OSU Agreement, must be used for the purposes of scheduling vacation or approving employee requests for vacation when the number of employees requesting vacation exceeds the number who can be allowed time off for the period of time involved and when the need to maintain services is not otherwise involved.

In addition, for employees in the Operational Services Unit, agencies may establish deadlines for the submittal of requests for vacation as a prerequisite for scheduling vacation by seniority. Such deadlines must be worked out jointly with CSEA. Any such existing or established methods or practices governing the scheduling of vacation for OSU employees may not be changed or terminated unless appropriate representatives of CSEA are consulted.

For Institutional Services Unit employees, the CSEA local may request that appointing authorities (departments, agencies, institutions or other local operating units) establish by September 1 of each year of the contract an annual date or dates or period(s) by or within which an employee must request a block or blocks of time off in order to have his/her seniority considered. For the purposes of requesting vacation time off under this provision, a "block of time" is defined as five or more consecutive workdays. (The five days may be five consecutive workdays that...

TM-6 - New or Revised Material - January 1991

C-13

...coincide with five consecutive calendar days [e.g., Monday through Friday] or five consecutive workdays surrounding pass days [e.g., Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Tuesday, Wednesday, with a Sunday/Monday pass day combination]. The employee must have sufficient leave credits [vacation, holiday, personal leave] to cover the requested absence.)

For employees in the Professional, Scientific and Technical Services Unit, seniority as defined in Article 25 of the PS&T Agreement and for employees in the Rent Regulation Services Unit, seniority, as defined in Article 27 of the RRSU agreement, must be used for purposes of scheduling vacation or approving employee requests for vacation when the number of employees requesting vacation exceeds the number who can be allowed time off for the period of time involved and when the need to maintain services is not otherwise involved. In both units there may be labor/management agreements to provide preference in the assignment of vacation and without regard to "seniority" for employees with more than 35 days of vacation. Any such agreement should provide some method for determining in what order vacation shall be approved for these employees. Also, in developing such agreements, care should be taken to consider the problem of extending preferential treatment to employees who accrue excessive amounts of vacation by "hoarding" vacation credits instead of taking vacation time each year in a manner consistent with the intent and spirit of the Attendance Rules.

Except as mutually agreed upon local arrangements may otherwise permit, seniority as defined in Article 24 of either the Security Services or the Security Supervisors Agreement must be used for purposes of scheduling vacations and approving requests for vacation time for employees in the Security Services and Security Supervisors Units.

For the purpose of applying the seniority definition in the contract for the Security Services Unit and Security Supervisors Unit employees:

1. uninterrupted service (permanent, provisional or temporary) in title in the employing department or agency is counted beginning with initial employment on a full-time basis;
2. uninterrupted service includes leaves with pay, military leave without pay not to exceed four years, workers' compensation leave without pay and any period of continuous leave without pay up to but not in excess of one year;

TM-6 - New or Revised Material - January 1991

C-14

3. a resignation, termination, retirement, layoff or other separation followed by reinstatement or reemployment within one year of such separation does not constitute an interruption of service; the period between separation and reinstatement or reemployment is counted as service in title;
4. an employee who is promoted and subsequently reassigned, without a break in State service, to a position with the same title as the position from which he/she was promoted and is so reassigned more than one year following such promotion should be credited with that amount of service in title as he/she had accumulated at the time of the promotion;
5. two employees who have equal service in title should be ranked (for seniority purposes) in accordance with their scores on the civil service examination taken for that appointment which corresponds to the beginning date of each employee's current period of uninterrupted service and, if such scores are identical or unavailable, they may be ranked by any procedure mutually agreed upon at the department or agency level;
6. employees with permanent status in title shall be considered before employees with temporary or provisional status in title (e.g., the permanent employee with six months of service in title has greater "seniority" than the temporary employee with ten months of service).

TM-6 - No Substantive Changes - January 1991

Revision History	TM-6 - January 1991
C-1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14	No Substantive Changes
C-3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13	New or Revised Material

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