What is the deal here, why aren't we bidding?
Up until this year, status quo has worked because we've had the staffing to support the Non Prime Time leave process. We'd get 10 days guaranteed leave (Prime Time), then the Non Prime time leave would be approved/denied when the schedule gets published. With that, we would get creative and use trainees to cover leave when we didn't have the CPC coverage. This year we missed a lot of opportunities, and a lot of that of course goes to our staffing losses such as medical disqualifications, retirements & promotions.
Why are we doing this?
We cannot afford status quo anymore.
This past year we averaged about 33 CPC's per area when it came time to bid. This year we have two areas at 29, one area at 31 and the other at 32. Additionally we could have anywhere from 2 to 9 people that will retire prior to July.
Article 24 section 2 states that all employees shall be authorized the use of the leave they are entitled to earn within a leave year at any time during the leave year. The readers digest version of this means that the Agency must approve all leave accrued for each employee during the bidding process for each year.
What are other facilities doing?
13 of the 21 Centers approve all leave that each employee accrues during the bidding process with an excess of 25-30% additional leave slots to bid.
4 Centers are still in negotiations.
3 plus us are in the same boat.
So where are we at now?
The guidance that Chuck has been given is that he cannot spend overtime money on Non-Prime Time Leave, therefore the last offer was 2 slots per day for the whole year and in November it bumps to 3. This equates to about 710 days, however each area will accrue about 810.
While we cannot negotiate the amount of leave slots, we can discuss what the Prime Time period looks like. Our last proposal spelled that out so we can try to maximize the leave opportunities for each employee.
Bottom line (with managements last proposal) is that 2 slots per day isn't going to cut it as maybe the top 25% of the area will get summertime off. There will be a very limited opportunity for NPTL (don't buy any plane tickets or non-refundable deposits) and certainly no spot leave this summer.
So what next?
We are waiting for the Agency's final proposal to see what it looks like. If we don't get the leave slots that we are entitled to by contract, then we will have to go to an actual arbitrated impasse. Until then we'll continue to stay on the same schedule, any leave that you need in January-March will need to go through web schedules.
I am sorry that this could be causing some inconvenience or possible anxiety on a potential vacation plans for early next year, but if we didn't make a stand for this now, it would be waiving our contractual right for any leave we are entitled to other than the 10 days we already get.