USPS – NPMHU Contract Interpretation Manual
Section 13.3C provides that the installation head may make changes in an employee’s regular schedule and work location in order to accommodate a light duty request without incurring an overtime or out-of-schedule premium obligation. However, if there is light duty on the employee’s tour, it should be made available. Sources: Step 4 Grievances NC-S-5127, dated April 15, 1977, and H8C-2F-C 8635, dated April 24, 1981; ELM Chapter 4, Section 434.622. Question: Do employees who are on light duty have a right to work their normal work schedule? Answer: No. The availability of the light duty assignment will determine the schedule of the employee, irrespective of the previous duty assignment. Local management will make a reasonable effort to reassign the employee to available light duty in his/her own craft prior to scheduling the employee for light duty in another craft. Source: Step 4 Grievance NC-W-8182, dated November 14, 1977. When an employee on limited duty is assigned to a schedule other than the employee’s normal schedule, the employee is not entitled to out-of-schedule premium pay. Parenthetically, the arbitrator specifically noted that this decision does not give management an “unbridled right” to make such an out-of-schedule assignment if a limited duty assignment could be offered during the employee’s regular tour. While the NALC was the grieving union in this case, the NPMHU intervened pursuant to Article 15, and therefore this decision is binding on mail handlers. Source: National Arbitration Award N8-NA-0003, Arbitrator H. Gamser, dated March 12, 1980. Note, however, that the considerations listed in ELM 546.142, outlined at the end of this chapter, must be made in assigning limited duty to employees who are injured on duty. Requiring an employee to report for a light duty assignment that he/she has not requested is inappropriate. As the employee in question was directed to work a schedule different from his normal schedule, and as such assignment was not for the employee’s personal convenience and was not sanctioned by the union, the employee was entitled to receive out-of-schedule premium pay for the period he worked in other than his normal work schedule. Source: Step 4 Grievance N8-W-0096/W8N-5G-C 4396, dated November 26, 1979.
Version 3 – March 2011
Article 13 Page 7