Snow Days
Welcome back to the Mountaineer, and today we’re going to talk about snow days!
Snow days are fun when you’re a kid and you don’t have to go to school, but as an adult? There are a few headaches that go along with it unfortunately. Luckily for us, we have some info on snow days based on sound contractual provisions. In this article you will learn a bit about how to protect yourself and help your steward effectively grieve your use of leave for the day(s) in question. Let’s get into it.
First things first, you have to notify someone you won’t be able to make it in to work. On the employee’s end this might be calling in on the leave request phone number, or the web-based leave request system. Another way might be to call your supervisor and let them know you tried to make it in but couldn’t. Whatever the case is, do your part to let someone know you won’t be able to make it in. This isn’t like any other Non-Scheduled day though, you have just a little work you’ve got to do to cover yourself, so don’t get all comfy under your blankets yet and fire up Netflix for a day of binging and regret later.
Next, you need to make a log of what kept you from being able to make it in to work:
Were your roads plowed?
Were there accidents on your street?
How does your vehicle handle in the conditions immediately outside your home?
What time did you call in?
What is the weather doing when you called in, and what is it forecasted to do for the rest of the day?
What, if anything, did you do to attempt to make it in to work?
Who did you let know you weren’t coming in to work, how did you let them know, and did you use any sick leave, annual leave, LWOP, or anything else.
Write up that quick statement telling someone what the conditions were that prevented you from being able to show up. Write your statement as though you are telling someone you don’t know your story, because that’s likely who will be reading it. Keep it professional, informative, and reasonably detailed.
Last, when you return to work request steward time to be able to provide the steward your statement and tell them your situation.
Your Protections and Guidance
To see your protections in action we need to look to the Employee Labor Relations Manual, an admittedly dry read, but full of great information that can protect you when your rights are violated.
Section 519.21 is the one we’ll be looking at specifically, and it’s called
ACTS OF GOD.
The title betrays the contents because there is no lightning smiting people, no tornadoes of ash and bone from some apocalyptic maelstrom, not even mention on a great wolf swallowing the sun and plunging the world into darkness. But, it does tell us a little bit about administrative leave.
The major takeaways are this:
You are not required to risk life and limb to report for duty. Section 519.213 only requires that you could attend with “reasonable diligence” to arrive at work. Unreasonable diligence would be white-knuckling it to work as you slide around and pray someone doesn’t smash yo on your way to work.
Acts of God prevent groups of individuals from reporting for work. So if you call out, say the snow kept you in, and you’re the only one at your station that couldn’t show up due to bad weather; you’re likely out of luck. That’s found in 519.211.
You could be granted Administrative Leave for the day. If enough people have called out due to an Act of God management should consider giving them Admin Leave instead of requiring them to use their own sick or annual leave balances. Section 519.212 and .214 detail this.
If you and others have called-out for a snow day and used your own leave, you may have a grievance to get that leave back. Leave isn’t something you want to let go of unless you absolutely have to. It’s a major benefit to us, and if you use it to cover something that’s not your fault we just might be able to get it back.
DONE. Quick and painless, and I even got to mention a tornado made of ash and bone cleaving the lands in a vengeful act of a vicious mythological god; everybody wins.
So if you get stuck indoors from a snow storm and have to call-out to cover the absence: document your conditions and request a steward when you get back to see if they can get you your leave back by replacing it with Administrative Leave.
Then you can binge your shows or game all day.
Have a great one, thanks for the read.