CURRENT NEWS

In the Orlando FL District Office individuals have been questioned concerning requests for Annual or Sick leave. There have been calls made to people at home on sick leave to make certain they were at home. Another employee had a medical test scheduled, and management refused to grant her the 8 hours requested for the test. The manager told the employee that management felt the procedure would only take 4 hours to complete, so she had to take annual or credit leave to supplement the 4 hours Sick Leave they'd grant if she still wanted 8 hours of leave. None of the managers have medical degrees, but that is beside the point.
It's not inconceivable that this issue will take place in other office, so make sure all employees know their rights regarding use of leave.
Annual and Sick leave is earned to be used as needed. Leave is requested on the SSA-71 form.
Please review the form and note the options in Section 5. Choices are :Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Leave Without Pay, Sick Compensatory Time, or Other. You make a choice, check the proper box, and turn the form in to a member of management.
Section 6 allows for remarks, but none are required.
If you are requesting Sick Leave, the back of the form has additional choices. Section 1 states "I was incapacitated for duty by: Sickness, On-The-Job-Injury,Off-The-Job-Injury,Pregnancy and Confinement."
Typically, one of the above choices handles most situations. Section 2 has an additional choice, "I was required to care for a member of my family with a contagious disease. (Give name and relationship of family member, and name of disease.)"
Section 3 states simply "I will be undergoing medical, dental or optical examination or treatment." It has no requirement that you provide the name of the procedure you are to undergo, the duration of the procedure and recovery time, the travel time involved. Nowhere on the SSA-71 is this information required, nor are you under any requirement to divulge this information to anyone.
Section 4 states "I was exposed to a contagious disease. (Give name of disease and circumstances of exposure.)"
Note again, that sections 2 and 4 dealing with exposures to contagious disease are the only sections requiring an employee to provide any explanation of their illness or absence from work beyond the initial request, made by checking the correct box on the form.
The form is not meant to release any information other than the time you are requesting off and the category of leave you are requesting.
Management's role in the process is to either approve or disapprove leave. See the section on the form entitled "Official Action On Application."
There is no conditional approval. Leave is either approved or denied, not approved based on someone's interpretation of how long a procedure should last. Leave approval or denial is not negotiable by management, as in "I'll approve 4 hours for that procedure, but not 8 because I think the Doctor can handle it in 4 hours."
Should any employee who is not on leave restriction be questioned by management about use of sick leave, or how long a procedure will last, or what the procedure is or what the leave is going to be used for they need to ask to speak to their Union Representative immediately.
If someone is told that they'll be granted fewer hours of leave than requested because the questioner feels it should take less time than requested to accomplish the test, procedure or purpose of the leave, again, you must ask to speak to their Union Representative immediately.
Use of leave is personal and confidential so please consider this before you divulge anything about your leave request, even to a member of management.
If you have further questions about this issue, please feel free to contact the Executive Board using the email form at the bottom of this page.