Can a firefighter call in “sick” while on vacation, and thus preserve another vacation day? What if there is medical documentation? Veteran readers might wonder, what is the parties’ practice? And if the “practice” is that a grand total of two firefighters had done this – in 1992, but not before or since – that does not exactly support the notion of a binding past practice, does it? It did to one DLR hearing officer who apparently assumed no firefighter got sick enough to see a doctor while on vacation, over a period of 20 years. Town of Shrewsbury and Local 4613, (MUP-13-2954) (Sullivan).
If an employer chooses not to fill a police captain’s position, but instead assigns a police lieutenant to perform the captain’s duties, does it have a duty to bargain about the lieutenant’s pay and workload? This is a split decision: No duty to bargain about filling the position per se, but the assignment of captain’s duties to the lieutenant required impact bargaining. City of Everett and NEPBA, (MUP-13-3006) (Davis).
Is the decision to re-hire a retired employee a negotiable subject of bargaining because, without that hiring, unit members would have had more overtime and could have bid on the vacant position? No. At least not without evidence of how the hiring impacted terms and conditions of employment of unit members. Town of Winchester and S.E.I.U. Local 888, (MUP-13-3289) (See).
