On March 10, 2014, the National parties held an arbitration hearing over the following question: whether the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Postal Service and the NPMHU on Administrative Leave for Bone Marrow, Stem Cell, Blood Platelet, and Organ Donations guarantees fulltime employees administrative leave in eight-hour increments when a request for administrative leave to donate blood platelets is approved?
“The referenced MOU has appeared in the National Agreement since 2006, when the maximum number of days of leave for blood platelet donations was increased from three to seven. Before that time, the issue of leave for blood platelet and the other specified donations was covered by Section 519.52 of the Employee and Labor Relations Manual, but the parties agreed to add these leave commitments, and to increase the amount of leave, during negotiations over the 2006 National Agreement.
The Postal Service position in the pending arbitration is that the reference in this MOU to days – “up to 7 days” – always was intended to mean up to 56 hours. Indeed, during the hearing, the Postal Service conceded that “up to 7 days” really means up to 56 hours: “If anything is implicit in the MOU, it is that up to seven days means up to 56 hours.” Thus, according to the Postal Service, a full-time mail handler could be granted 4 hours of leave on up to 14 days, and still fall within the leave authorized by the MOU.
Notwithstanding the importance of this concession, the NPMHU is continuing to argue that “up to 7 days” means that each instance of blood platelet leave is meant to be a full 8-hour day, as is true for the bone marrow, stem cell, and organ donations that also are covered by the same MOU. Among other factors, had the parties intended to allow blood platelet leave for less than a full day, such leave easily could have been included within the blood donation provisions of the ELM, which allow for more typical blood donations in hourly increments, rather than including blood platelet donations in this MOU, which provides for paid administrative leave in daily increments.
Post-hearing briefs have been submitted by the NPMHU and the Postal Service in early June, and a decision from National Arbitrator Shyam Das is expected during the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, any mail handler who decides to donate blood platelets is, at a minimum, entitled to the administrative leave reasonably needed to make and recover from such donations, up to a total of 56 hours in any year.
