Comp Day?
By Al Gucmeris
Member of Southwest Florida Branch 42 and Postmaster of Bonita Springs, FL
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all survived peak season and are ready for another crazy year full of changes and surprises. Just this past year, Past President Brian Wagner, wrote a column, "Comp Time is Rearing Its Ugly Head—Again!” It’s a great column and, I believe, read by all of us.
However, I hear it again: “How can I request my comp day?” I ask, “Why do you need to request a comp day?” The response is, “I was told to work my non-scheduled day.”
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no comp day for postal employees—never was and probably never will be. There is personal leave for special-exempt and exempt EAS employees as per ELM 519.7.
Nonbargaining-unit exempt employees are paid on a salary basis. This means that, under the FLSA, they are not considered to be hourly-rate employees. Therefore, partial-day absences are paid the same as work time.
While exempt employees are expected to work a full day, they may request time off to attend to personal matters during the workday, including time off due to conditions covered by the FMLA. If approved, the time off is “personal absence time” and is not charged to annual leave, sick leave or LWOP. When an exempt employee is directed to work a full day on a holiday or another full day in addition to normal workdays, the supervisor may grant a full day of personal absence without charging it to official leave.
Exempt employees must obtain prior approval from their supervisors for all absences, whether or not such absences are to be charged to the employee’s leave account, except for postmasters and installation heads. At the discretion of the installation head, Form 3971 may be used to request personal absences not charged to leave.
Postmasters and installation heads normally are not required to obtain advance approval for personal absences. They are required, however, to keep an accurate record of all such absences and generally to keep their manager informed of planned periods away from the office. In this respect, the manager may require the use of Form 3971 to report absences.
When Form 3971 is used for personal absence time, it must indicate in Remarks: “Do not charge to leave.”
If you are a postmaster, it is very important to know about personal leave because this is the only way to get reimbursed for the non-scheduled (NS) day you worked. I personally prefer to have my scheduled NS day off, but anything can happen and you may have to work on Saturday or Sunday or even a holiday. Personal leave will become handy in these situations.
So, brothers and sisters, please remember there are no comp days, but there is personal leave!
Stay safe.
Categories: The Postal Supervisor
