Recently a grievance, in regards to Article 26, was won after it was decided that the language within the article under Section 5 has been misinterpreted by our agency. There have been similar cases with the half hour of SDE misunderstood by other agencies in the past.
Article 26 Section 5 "... All employees shall be paid a differential as outlined in Subsections (b) and (c) below, for each hour or major portion there of (thirty (30) minutes or more), worked between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. and for each hour or major portion thereof worked on Saturday or Sunday."
In a nutshell, this means that if you worked 30 minutes of SDE instead of a full hour, your rate of .75 should not change (.5 hours SDE x $.75 does not equal $.375). I remember a few years ago when I worked weekends we were told if you worked 8.5 hours of SDE you are supposed to round up to 9. Then about 2 years ago an email went out and we were directed to no longer round up our total "shift diff" if it included a half hour. Looks like we may return to 9.
Most of you have probably received the email from our HR Department about this issue. Payroll will be performing an audit on all employees effected and there will be more to come, so stay tuned.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Shop Steward Maurice Wray for his diligence in working on this case. He was the steward who represented the grievant that brought this issue to light.
