710 optional week contract change

[Ruralbrownman]

One of the proposals in the new 710 contract is concerning the optional week. If approved , you will be able have 5 more optional days in lieu of the optional week. Does anyone know how this will work when picking vacations , will you have to declare when picking vacations either the 5 days or take the whole week? I think this should be clarified before we vote!!

 

[tieguy]

One of the proposals in the new 710 contract is concerning the optional week. If approved , you will be able have 5 more optional days in lieu of the optional week. Does anyone know how this will work when picking vacations , will you have to declare when picking vacations either the 5 days or take the whole week? I think this should be clarified before we vote!!

Probably not that difficult. Your bidding vacations . sup asks you if you want to bid your optionals as a vacation. You say yes and bid it or you say no and use them individually.

 

[Re-Raise]

Probably not that difficult. Your bidding vacations . sup asks you if you want to bid your optionals as a vacation. You say yes and bid it or you say no and use them individually.

I am a driver in 710, actually on my optional week of vacation right now.


There will be 30 drivers all wanting Fridays in the summer. It might make the cover driver job very interesting jumping from route to route mid week.

 

[upsdude]

I’m under the Atlantic area supplement. Here are some of our options: We can bid our 5 sick days as a week’s vacation. We can bid our 5 personal days as a week’s vacation. We can hold back 5 vacation days and take them one at a time during the year.

I bid my sick days as vacation, hold back 5 vacation days and along with my 5 personal days I can take 10 individual days off during the year. The contract requires that 3 personal days be approved each day and 1 vacation day. I generally use vacation days during the cooler months, not as many folks looking to get off work. I save the personals for “peak demand” times. LOL.

 

[Dutch Dawg]

On page 14 of the proposal that you should have by now it clearly defines under Article 7 Section 1 how this change will be implemented.

In short, you will need to declare intention to take it as days during your vacation pick as opposed to a week of vacation, you do not need choose which days at that time.

Remember, once you select a week of vacation you know you have that week. With these days chosen as blocks or individually, they will be secured 7 days ahead according to senority, which you may or may not get at that time.

"Approval of vacation days will be at the discretion of the employer....."

This could prove interesting.....

 

[Re-Raise]

I just received the proposal today. With as much luck as I have with 8 hr requests and getting my optional days now, I think I will stick to taking the week.

I don't like leaving anything up to " the discretion of the employer"

And I am in the top 1/4 in seniority at my center, but there is always some kind of emergency where they can't do without you.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I’m under the Atlantic area supplement. Here are some of our options: We can bid our 5 sick days as a week’s vacation. We can bid our 5 personal days as a week’s vacation. We can hold back 5 vacation days and take them one at a time during the year.

I bid my sick days as vacation, hold back 5 vacation days and along with my 5 personal days I can take 10 individual days off during the year. The contract requires that 3 personal days be approved each day and 1 vacation day. I generally use vacation days during the cooler months, not as many folks looking to get off work. I save the personals for “peak demand” times. LOL.

Is it just me or does this not make any sense? Why would you exchange a weeks worth of vacation to be used as 5 individual days off for 5 sick days lumped together as a vacation? Are you not allowed to use your sick days as personal days? I just don't see the logic in this and apologize for not being able to but it just doesn't make any sense to me. Why not use the vacations as intended and keep your sick and personal days as they are intended? The only reason I can think of is you are not allowed to use sick days as personal, which we are allowed to do here in Upstate NY. We don't have the option week here (we get 4 personal and 5 sick days) so I admit I am not familiar with it so any help you can give me in understanding this would be most appreciated.

 

[upsdude]

The 5 vacation days can be scheduled like PH days, 7 days in advance. Sick days can’t be “scheduled”. I prefer having 10 days during the year I can schedule at my convenience. Should I get sick to point that I’m out for a few days (and need the money) I can be paid for the held back vacation days.

With my being in the top 5% of the seniority list I pretty much get whatever days I want. It’s nice during the spring and summer to schedule a few 3-day weekends!

Oh, as far as “scheduling” sick days, I suppose you could leave yourself a reminder note as to which days you need to call in. LOL!

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

We don't "schedule" sick days but can use them in the same way as personal days. I am not familiar with the option week so this is all new to me but it does sound like it can work to our favor.

 

[Chnandler Bong]

Is it just me or does this not make any sense? Why would you exchange a weeks worth of vacation to be used as 5 individual days off for 5 sick days lumped together as a vacation? Are you not allowed to use your sick days as personal days? I just don't see the logic in this and apologize for not being able to but it just doesn't make any sense to me. Why not use the vacations as intended and keep your sick and personal days as they are intended? The only reason I can think of is you are not allowed to use sick days as personal, which we are allowed to do here in Upstate NY. We don't have the option week here (we get 4 personal and 5 sick days) so I admit I am not familiar with it so any help you can give me in understanding this would be most appreciated.

The reason this is an issue in 710 is because we have no sick days. If you have to take off because of illness you just don't get paid. We get 2 personal days, but I think it jumps up to 3 with this contract.

I have 2 problems with this issue. First, why do we have to give so much notice? They really need a weeks notice? And second, are they going to increase the number of drivers allowed off on a daily basis?

We have about 50 drivers in our center and it's almost impossible to get a Friday off unless you are in the top 10-15 on the seniority list. They only have to let one driver off a day and Vacation days supercede Option days. Meaning if you have a holiday during one of your vacations, you get an extra option day to pick. Everyone picks a Friday. If everyone gets another 5 days, the number allowed off needs to increase.

I will still probably break mine up. This way I can help coach my kids ball teams and actually make it to some of the games.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I normally take the holiday pay in lieu of the extra day off if I take a vacation that has a holiday included.

 

[trplnkl]

I normally take the holiday pay in lieu of the extra day off if I take a vacation that has a holiday included.

Here we have no option on that, take a vaca on a week with a holiday.....lose a day off.

UpState, here if you choose Option three (taking the option week in daily increments) you get 7 days off (totaling 56 hours). I think that is broken up as 3 days for when you have to call in on a given day and 4 that they say has to be scheduled. I've read it but don't remember for sure. I use the 4 days for Doc appointments and such. We also have one option day that has to be requested in writing a week in advance. No paid sick days as such.

 

[upsdude]

Atlantic Supplement............

5 weeks vacation (20 years)
5 Personal Days
5 Sick Days

If we take a week's vacation that includes a paid holiday............. Check will show 45 hours pay for vacation and 8 hours pay for the holiday. No option to take the holiday later. I prefer the extra pay.

 

[Dutch Dawg]

What does this mean?

Article 6
Holidays
1.second paragraph

"The Employer shall allow a minimum of 2% of the Employees, by classification, put to work that day with an optional holiday."

The above statement makes absolutely no sense to me, perhaps someone could explain what it's intended meaning is?

My understanding of the language leads me to believe an individual vacation day would be subservient to an optional day request. In other words if employee A with 5 yrs senority requested an optional day on the same date as employee B with 10 yrs senority requested an individual vacation day, employee A would get the day off before employee B with more senority. Is this true or are optional days and individual vacation days treated as equals in the proposal language?

 

[LU710]

What does this mean?

Article 6
Holidays
1.second paragraph

"The Employer shall allow a minimum of 2% of the Employees, by classification, put to work that day with an optional holiday."

The above statement makes absolutely no sense to me, perhaps someone could explain what it's intended meaning is?

My understanding of the language leads me to believe an individual vacation day would be subservient to an optional day request. In other words if employee A with 5 yrs senority requested an optional day on the same date as employee B with 10 yrs senority requested an individual vacation day, employee A would get the day off before employee B with more senority. Is this true or are optional days and individual vacation days treated as equals in the proposal language?

The language you are stating above is under holidays(Article 6.) The proposed segmented vacation language falls under vacation language (Article 7.) Two different issues; two different people off. 1 off on optional day and 1 off on vacation day.

 

[Dutch Dawg]

The language you are stating above is under holidays(Article 6.) The proposed segmented vacation language falls under vacation language (Article 7.) Two different issues; two different people off. 1 off on optional day and 1 off on vacation day.

What you said was pretty much what I was trying to say. With this sentence in article 7 "Approval of vacation days will be at the discretion of the employer....." , my understanding is the senerio could be a lower senority driver could get an optional day off for a date and a higher senority driver could be refused that same date if he were to use a vacation day, as the vacation day is at the discretion of management as to whether they have someone to cover. Is this true, could this occur?

 

[Chnandler Bong]

What you said was pretty much what I was trying to say. With this sentence in article 7 "Approval of vacation days will be at the discretion of the employer....." , my understanding is the senerio could be a lower senority driver could get an optional day off for a date and a higher senority driver could be refused that same date if he were to use a vacation day, as the vacation day is at the discretion of management as to whether they have someone to cover. Is this true, could this occur?

The way it was explained to us was that you could no longer lock in the extra vacation day (for a holiday week) unless you used the day before or after your weeks vacation. If you choose not to lock in one of those two days, it essentially becomes an extra optional day.

They only have to allow one option day off per day at our center, but 2 vacation days off per day as long as there are over 50 routes. Two separate lists to sign. This is how it was explained at our 710 meeting.

 

[Ms.PacMan]

I was thinking that one of the benefits to using vacation days individually would be to take 4 days during a holiday week (Labor day, Memorial day, 4th of July) and having the extra vacation day left over for some other time. (In a perfect world - I know there are many UPS pitfalls in this scenario )

Don't we also pick vacations in November now for the following year - the whole year?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Don't we also pick vacations in November now for the following year - the whole year?

Is that in the new contract? We used to always pick in January. I can see problems with picking in November--suppose you are no longer with the company January 1st?

 

[Ms.PacMan]

Is that in the new contract? We used to always pick in January. I can see problems with picking in November--suppose you are no longer with the company January 1st?

I looked it up for myself this morning. I'm not in 710 but our Central Region supplement (Art.16, para.7, pg.211) reads:

The vacation schedule shall be posted in each center on November 15th of each year, for the following year's vacation period. ......Vacations shall be selected within thirty (30) calendar days after the schedule is posted.