Public Employee Press

Snow day pay victory for 1,000 in school health jobs

The union has won back pay and restoration of annual leave days for almost 1,000 school health employees in Locals 436 and 768 who could not work on Feb. 10 and 26, 2010, because a snow emergency closed their schools.

The decision from the Board of Collective Bargaining came in response to improper labor practice charges filed by DC 37 and the locals against the Health Dept. for violating the established past practice of paying the workers under such conditions unless they were reassigned to other work locations.

Claiming that the contract did not require pay for unscheduled closings, the agency refused to pay the Public Health Assistants and Advisors of Local 768 and the Public Health Nurses and Jr. PHNs of Local 436 who work in the schools for the snow days. Instead the agency charged the leave balances or docked the paychecks of the 992 members for the two days.

In hearings on the charges, Associate General Counsel Robin Roach and union witnesses established that the department had paid the members for closings in 1996, 2001, 2004 and 2007 due to snow, in 1999 due to Hurricane Floyd and in 2009 due to the H1N1 virus outbreak.

BCB ruled that to change that past practice management would have had to negotiate with the union, and ordered the Health Dept. to provide back pay or restore leave balances to the employees.

Local 768 President Fitz Reid and Local 436 President Judith Arroyo applauded the ruling and quickly went to work to be sure all members involved received their due.

"This victory was a real team effort," said Arroyo, who testified at the hearings with Assistant Director Michele Trester of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept. The union team also included Director Nola Brooker and Council Reps Stephanie Miller and Cynthia Keyes-Padilla of DC 37's Professional Division.