Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Sick Time Arbitration

No Slayer Shirt Today!
Today, December 17, 2013 MNPEA held an arbitration with Hennepin County regarding Article 13 of our Contract: Sick time. The arbitrator was retired Hennepin County Judge Crump.


The issues:

On June 1, 2011 the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office issued a new "Special Order" based on their newly minted Lexipol Policy stating that anyone using more than 96 hours (12 days) of sick time a year is abusing their sick time. The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office then went back one year and retroactively placed employees on monitored sick time for a policy that didn't exist at that time, and should have been negotiated.

The Union's position is that article 13 clearly states what sick time can be used for, not how much can be used. Article 13 does allow for the employer to make an employee get a doctors note if they miss three consecutive days. If the employer wanted different language it would have to be negotiated and they certainly had no right to enforce a policy retroactively.

The Employers position is that they have inherent managerial right to make policy and if the Union disagreed with their policy WE should have tried to negotiate that.. The employer believes they can do whatever they want without consulting the Union unless it is specifically mentioned in the contract.

The Union believes that contract trumps "policy." There have been many contentions with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office over their dictating by Special Order and email without consulting the Union.

The grievance is now in the hands of the arbitrator. It could be a couple of months before we have a decision.

I will keep you posted.

This arbitration is BMS # 12PA0846

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