ELM revision: Use of Leave on a Worked Holiday -Effective January 20, 2005, Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM) 510, Leave, is revised to clarify how leave without pay (LWOP), annual leave, and sick leave can be used when an eligible employee elects annual leave credit in lieu of holiday leave pay and then works a partial day. These changes are pursuant to the changes recently made to ELM 434.4, Holiday Leave Pay, and announced in Postal Bulletin 22126 (5-13-04, pages 24-26).

518 Holiday Leave

518.1 Observed Holidays

The following 10 days are observed as holidays by the U.S. Postal Service:

a. New Year's Day January 1.

b. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday 3rd Monday in January.

c. Washington's Birthday/Presidents' Day 3rd Monday in February.

d. Memorial Day Last Monday in May.

e. Independence Day July 4.

f. Labor Day 1st Monday in September.

g. Columbus Day 2nd Monday in October.

h. Veterans' Day November 11.

i. Thanksgiving Day 4th Thursday in November.

j. Christmas Day December 25.

Note: Administrative leave is not granted for absence on state, local, or religious holidays. To the fullest extent practicable, annual leave or LWOP is granted to employees for observance of their religious holidays.

518.2 Holidays on Nonscheduled Workdays

518.21 Saturday

When a holiday falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday is observed as the holiday.

518.22 Sunday

When a holiday falls on Sunday, the following Monday is observed as the holiday.

518.23 Nonscheduled Workday

When an employee's nonscheduled workday falls on a day observed as a holiday, the employee's scheduled workday preceding the holiday is designated as that employee's holiday.

518.3 Holidays on Scheduled Workdays

Holidays falling on an employee's scheduled workday are observed on those days.

518.4 Eligibility for Holiday Pay

Annual Leave in Lieu of Holiday Leave Pay

APWU Represented Employees, Mail Handlers, Postal Police, EAS

Effective immediately, Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM) 434.4, Holiday Leave Pay, is revised to notify eligible employees that they may elect to receive annual leave in lieu of holiday leave pay. This section is also reorganized to improve clarity. The substantive changes appear in 434.412 and 434.422.

The substantive changes are made necessary by revisions in Article 11, sections 3 and 4, of the national agreement between the Postal Service and the American Postal Workers' Union (APWU), pursuant to the Goldberg Interest Arbitration Award December 18, 2001, as well as by the Memorandum of Understanding between the Postal Service and the APWU, January 29, 2002.

The changes affect not only clerk and maintenance craft employees, but also employees in several other bargaining units, including the Information Technology/Accounting Service Center and the Operating Services Division, both represented by the APWU, as well as mail handlers, represented by the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, and certain nonbargaining employees in the Executive and Administrative Salary schedule

b. Variations in schedule for holiday observance are as follows:

(1) If a holiday falls on an eligible employee's regular scheduled workday, including Saturday or Sunday, the employee observes the holiday on that day.

(2) If a holiday falls on an eligible employee's scheduled nonworkday, the first scheduled day preceding the holiday is designated as the employee's holiday except as provided in 434.411b(3) and 434.421.

(3) If a holiday falls on a Sunday that is a nonscheduled workday for an eligible employee, Monday is designated as the employee's holiday. However, if Monday is also a nonscheduled workday, then Saturday is designated as the employee's holiday. For postal police officers, see the USPS- PPO Agreement.

(4) For all full-time postmasters, if a holiday falls on a Saturday that is a nonscheduled workday, the preceding Friday is designated as the postmaster's holiday. Where necessary, additional workhour allowances are authorized for those Post Offices without a senior supervisor to provide relief coverage during the postmaster's absence on holiday leave

434.412 Application

On these holidays, eligible employees receive holiday leave pay for the number of hours equal to their regular daily work schedule, not to exceed 8 hours (see 434.421). This holiday pay is instead of other paid leave to which employees might otherwise be entitled on their holiday.

Eligible employees who work their holiday, at their option, may elect to have their annual leave balance credited with up to 8 hours of annual leave in lieu of holiday leave pay (see 434.422). When this option is chosen, the deferred holiday leave pay is subject to all applicable rules for requesting and scheduling annual leave and is combined with annual leave and counted as annual leave for purposes of annual leave carryover (see 512.32).

Note: Holiday leave pay should not be confused with holiday-worked pay, holiday scheduling premium, or Christmas-worked pay (see 434.5).

434.421 Eligibility for Holiday Leave Pay

Eligibility is shown by category on the following chart:

¹ Unless the holiday falls on their scheduled workday.

² Holiday pay is included in the hourly rate.

To receive holiday leave pay, these employees must be in a pay status either the last scheduled hour before or the first scheduled hour after the holiday or designated holiday.

However, for an employee on extended LWOP, paid leave for the last scheduled hour before or the first scheduled hour after the holiday or designated holiday is not approved for the purpose of qualifying the employee for holiday pay.

434.422 Eligibility for Annual Leave in Lieu of Holiday Leave Pay

Categories of employees eligible for annual leave in lieu of holiday leave pay are shown on the following chart:

* Applies to FLSA-nonexempt employees. Also applies to EAS-23 and below FLSA-exempt employees who receive additional pay (i.e., special exempt) and also choose to substitute an entire 8 hours of holiday leave pay for annual leave.

Excludes EAS postmasters, officers in charge, postal inspectors, and employees in management development programs.

434.43 Pay Computation for Holiday Leave Pay

Provisions concerning pay computation are as follows:

a. Eligible employees are paid for the holiday at their basic hourly rate for those hours equal to their regular daily working schedule, not to exceed 8 hours. Eligible employees may elect to receive annual leave in lieu of holiday leave pay (see 434.412).

b. Holiday leave pay is in lieu of other paid leave to which an employee might otherwise be entitled on the designated holiday.

c. Holiday leave pay is payable in addition to compensation for hours actually worked on a designated holiday (see 434.5).

d. Eligible full-time and part-time regular employees require no specific authorization to be absent from work on a holiday or a designated holiday, unless scheduled to work.

e. A full-time or part-time regular employee who is scheduled to actually work on a holiday or on a designated holiday, but does not work, is placed in LWOP status and does not receive holiday leave pay, unless the absence is based on an extreme emergency situation and the absence is excused by the employee's supervisor.

f. Holiday leave paid to an employee who is on a COP status should be recorded as holiday leave and is counted as one of the 45 calendar days of COP for OWCP purposes.

g. When a full-time employee has partially overcome a compensable disability and is working a partial schedule under the rehabilitation program, holiday leave is payable up to the number of hours in the partial schedule. The remainder of the holiday leave pay is received from OWCP.

* * * * *

Postal Bulletin- Compensation,
Employee Resource Management, 5-13-04

Mail Handlers Article 11
Section 11.3 Payment
A An employee shall receive holiday pay at the employee's base hourly straight time rate for a number of hours equal to the employee's regular daily working schedule, not to exceed eight (8) hours. In addition, as provided for in Section 4 below, employees who work their holiday may, at their option, elect to have their annual leave balance credited with up to eight (8) hours of annual leave in lieu of holiday leave pay.

An eligible employee receives holiday leave pay for the number of hours equal to the employee’s regular daily work schedule, not to exceed (8) hours. Thus, fulltime employees receive eight (8) hours of holiday leave pay. Part-time regular employees scheduled to work a minimum of 5 days per service week are paid for the number of hours in their regular schedule. Part-time regular employees who
are regularly scheduled to work less than 5 days per service week receive holiday leave pay only if the holiday falls on a regularly scheduled workday .

Source: Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM) Chapter 4, Sections 434.412a and .422.

B Holiday pay is in lieu of other paid leave to which an employee might otherwise be entitled on the employee's holiday.

Except as discussed under Section 11.4, holiday leave pay “replaces” other approved paid leave that the employee would otherwise receive on the holiday. For example, employees who would otherwise receive approved sick or annual leave on the employee’s holiday would not have this time charged against their sick and annual leave balance.

Question: May an employee combine annual or sick leave with holiday leave pay in order to receive additional compensation?

Answer: No. Holiday leave pay is in lieu of other paid leave to which an employee might otherwise be entitled on a holiday.

Source: ELM 434.412a.