Did You Know: Civil Leave
One worker’s account of their experience of Civil Leave- and why they believe it needs to change.
Hey y'all, this is a bit long by necessity, so please take a moment to read this in full - it's important!
After the recent weather event on January 16th, many City workers were not informed by their supervisors that Civil Leave was available or how to access it. Many workers were told they could only "work from home, make up time or use Annual Leave." In some cases, workers only heard CL was available from co-workers who knew it was available, asked for and received it.
NOCWOC members realized that the way that CL was applied (or withheld) was deeply inequitable across departments and even among workers in the same departments, so we held an emergency meeting about this issue.
The lack of Civil Leave has been a problem for the majority of the current mayoral administration (especially since 2020), so it's really important that we all know what it is, how it has historically been applied and how to know when it is made available.
On the Louisiana State Civil Service site, there is a definition of Civil Leave under 11.23 that reads:
“1.23 Civil, Emergency, and Special Leave
An employee serving with job appointment, probationary or permanent status shall be given time off without loss of pay, annual leave, or sick leave when:
(a) Performing jury duty.
(b) Summoned to appear as a witness before a court, grand jury, or other public body or commission, provided that for purposes of this Subsection a plaintiff or defendant shall not be considered a witness, nor shall this Subsection apply to an employee summoned as a witness as a result of employment other than State employment.
(c) Performing emergency civilian duty in relation to national defense.
(d) His appointing authority determines that he is prevented by an act of God from performing duty.
(e) Amended and Re-enacted effective January 11, 1989 as Rule 11.23.2.
(f) Participating in a State Civil Service examination on a regular work day, or taking a required examination pertinent to the examinee's State employment, before a State licensing board.
(g) The appointing authority determines that because of local conditions or celebrations it is impracticable for his employees in such locality to work.
(h) The employee is ordered to report for pre-induction physical examination incident to possible entry into the military forces of the United States.
(i) The employee is a member of the National Guard and is called to state active duty by the Governor in response to a declared emergency.
(j) Engaged in the representation of a client in a criminal proceeding pursuant to an order of a court of competent jurisdiction, provided if compensation for such services is available from another source, he may not accept the special leave and the compensation.
(k) The employee is a current member of a Civil Air Patrol and incident to such membership is ordered to perform duty or participate in field exercises or training, except that such leave shall not be used for unit meetings or training conducted during such meetings.”
Under the above definition, City workers should probably be receiving Civil Leave for Carnival-related closures and other disruptive celebrations like next year's Superbowl.
In New Orleans, Civil Leave has also been applied in emergency situations like extreme temperatures and flooding, hurricanes, etc. where the workplace is not available to the workers or the public. Essentially, if the roads or public buildings aren't safe for the public, they're also not safe for workers and CL is a way of keeping people out of harm's way and making sure City workers can still pay our bills.
You can read New Orleans' Civil Service Civil Leave policies on page 75, Rule VIII section 4.1.
Looking back through ADP punches through the years, one NOCWOC member (who's worked for the City since 2015) recently saw that Civil Leave was applied on many occasions prior to 2020. This worker received 7 hours of CL (a day of pay) for Hurricane Harvey in 2017, on the anniversary of Katrina and three more hours on October 7th (Hurricane Nate). In 2018, there were four days of Civil leave January 17-20th for a hard freeze, similar to the events of this January. Later in 2018, there was an additional day of CL applied for Tropical Storm Gordon. In 2019, the same worker received 23 hours of CL for the extreme flooding event.
In 2020, this worker received 2 weeks of CL when they were ordered by a doctor to quarantine during the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, before there was testing and a 2 week quarantine was recommended for suspected exposure. And then Federal Civil Leave (Families First Employee Pay) was made available for all non-essential workers, so at the end of 2020, 259 hours of CL were applied, 70 hours of Families First Employee pay, 28 hours of "Furlough Covid-19." But regardless which code was applied, the worker still received their salary because it was deemed unsafe to work during this time.
In 2021, 56 hours of Civil Leave was applied during the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, when there were weeks without electricity in most of the city, but the worker whose leave story we're following also had to fight to receive CL for the Saturday Ida was predicted to make landfall and the entire 2021 hurricane season, a record hurricane season for named storms, City workers were unable to evacuate for storms without taking personal leave because the administration kept waiting until the last minute to close City buildings and services and wouldn't apply Civil Leave when they were closed.
There was no CL applied for this worker in 2022 or 2023, not till they had to request CL for the extreme weather event on January 16th of this year. Previous to the Ida hurricane season, CL was applied proactively for dates when City buildings and services were non-operational. You didn't have to fight for it, or even ask for it - it was just applied.
How did the worker know to request CL for January 16th's closure?
There was an email sent to all City workers at 6:54 p.m. on January 15th, just before the expected extreme weather. The subject line was "[CAO] Reduced Operations, January 16." In the middle paragraph of the email: "City employees who are approved to work remotely may be allowed to telework or may be given the option to work extended hours on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday of this week at the discretion of their Appointing Authority to account for missed time. Employees who are unable to telework or work extended hours may be placed on Civil Leave for Tuesday, January 16."
So, workers needed to know what to look for in order to know CL was available, especially if their supervisor or appointing authority didn't alert them that it was an option. They also needed to know how to ask for it - what limitations to cite - and in some cases, they needed to inform their own supervisors that it was an option.
What's changed? Why are workers being expected to bear the cost when City buildings and services are suspended?
One last very important note in an already long message. Please take a look at any open position on the Civil Service job register. Click on the "Benefits" tab and scroll almost to the bottom. You will find this message:
We take care of our employees during emergencies
Employees who work during emergencies receive extra pay.
Employees who can't work due to emergency related workplace closures continue to receive their normal pay.
It's important to know that extra pay for working during emergencies and "normal pay" when you can't work during emergencies are being advertised as benefits of working for the City of New Orleans. This is an unmet promise when CL or "normal pay" isn't applied during City building closures. This is wage theft if workers are forced to use personal leave (earned benefits with financial value) when their workplace is closed.
Join us tonight at 6:30 p.m. to collaborate on how we the workers will hold the City accountable for this promise, to make them stop stealing our personal time and earned benefits.