Weather Admin Leave for Non Teleworking Employees

While Every Field Office in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana was closed 2/3/22, due to impending weather, CIRSC Campus employees were required to report for duty or request leave. 

Per Article 36 of the 2022 National Agreement, “The Employer has determined that if a weather or other safety-related conditions described above exists and prevents an employee from safely traveling to work and the post-of-duty is not closed, the employee will be granted weather and safety leave for all or part of the day only if he or she is prevented from safely traveling to his/her POD.”

To request and support the request for Weather and Safety Leave:

  • Call your manager as soon as you know there is a problem reporting to work.  If that’s 4 A.M. because your electricity went off waking you up with the cold and quiet, then call at 4A.M. and leave a message or send an email
  • Tell your manager the problem you are having.   “The ice pulled down live electric wires and they are blocking the only road into the cul de sac.” Do NOT tell you manager you can watch the news and you have more sense than to go out in this.  You will not get admin.
  • Tell your manager how you are trying to fix the problem or why you can’t. “I am not a Lineman for the County, so I called Duke, the recording estimates they will fix it by 9 a.m. “Do Not say you aren’t going out in this mess even if they fix it.  You will not get admin.
  • Tell your manager when you expect to arrive. “Duke said they would be here at 9, I should be there by 10 due to bad roads.”  Do Not say sometime in late May. You will not get admin.
  • Request Admin Leave!! If you request sick, annual in lieu of sick, credit, comp, annual, LWOP or AWOL, you will get that, you will not get admin.
  • Take pictures of the problem, if you can do so safely. Do not take/post pictures of you tubing down the driveway because you discovered you could get air if you hit the curb just right. 
  • Call your manager again when it gets near the time you told him/her you would arrive.
  • Go through all the steps above, again. Yes, tell your manager the electric wire is still down, you called Duke again, you still aren’t a lineman, they expect to be there by noon, request admin, take more pics. Repeat this again when you get near the next Estimated Time of Arrival. Until your manager tells you to stop bothering her or your tod is over. Management will deny your admin if/when you stop trying to get to work.  “My tour was half over, why bother.” Management will deny admin if you didn’t make any effort to get to work.  “I looked out the window, saw the ice and thought ‘I ain’t risking my life for that job.’” Management will deny admin if your reason is limited to you.  “I live on a steep hill.” Management will deny admin if you say you are sick and request sick leave.  “I ain’t feelin’ it, today. I need to use 8 hours of sick.” Management will deny admin if you are on scheduled leave and do not call and cancel that and follow all the above.

If your manager tells you he/she can’t grant admin or that you will be given AWOL or LWOP if you don’t request paid leave, tell her you are requesting annual until it can be changed to admin. 

Expect to wait for the time to be changed to Admin.  Even though management said, in the contract, they would trust their front-line managers to decide if the request is legitimate, CIRSC had decided a committee must make the determination on requests for more than 59 minutes.  If there are a lot of requests, it will take a while.

Please see management’s guidance to itself regarding inclement weather admin.

If you came to work and need to leave early to safely travel home, request admin.  If your manager denies it, ask them how they will accommodate you if you cannot leave the building due to the emergency called by the counties you must travel through.  Please document the response in an email to your manager restating their response as you understand it.  BE SAFE! NTEU73 believes surviving is more important than admin leave even if management doesn’t.

-NTEU73