Asking for vacation

This old policy has been superseded by Staff Vacation Policies.

The Free Geek Collective ceased to exist on February 28, 2013. For information on current staff, please go to Staff. For detailed information about the re-organization of Free Geek's management structure, please go to 2013_Restructuring_Documents.

Policy

This policy was last updated on November 7, 2007 at the HR Meeting.

Rate of Accrual for Collective Members

Collective members accrue sick and vacation time at the rate of 3.6 weeks per year. This is a straight fraction of every hour paid that currently works out to 0.0692 hours for each hour worked. There is no difference between sick and vacation time in terms of accounting.

Taking hours before they have accrued

Collective members must have already accrued their vacation hours prior to taking the vacation time. However, the collective member should be allowed to take sick time in advance when necessary for actual sickness or otherwise approved by the collective. (For instance in the case of a family emergency, the collective could allow the worker to take time not yet earned.)

Notification

Workers should use common sense in announcing general vacation plans as far in advance as is possible within reason.

Workers must request vacation time in advance with the specific times they will be away from work clearly stated. This should be done on the staff mailing list and at a staff meeting. All requests should be posted to the staff calendar as soon as feasible. Also make relevant coordinators aware of scheduling changes that affect their areas (i.e., if hours go down or if a different person will be covering a shift in their area).

If there is enough lead time, discussion should take place at a staff meeting, rather than on the staff list.

Approval

The staff can grant or deny specific vacation requests. When denying a vacation the staff must clearly state the reason for denial. The staff must make efforts to accommodate any worker asking for vacation providing the worker has accrued the hours required for the vacation and gave a reasonable amount of notice.

In the event that two or more workers want overlapping vacations, the staff may determine that there is a conflict and will need to decide which worker may take the vacation. In that event the following procedure must be followed:

• First, the contending workers should be asked to try to work out the conflict.
• If the conflict cannot be resolved, the staff should grant vacation using the following priority:
  • Already approved requests receive the highest priority.
  • If neither request has yet been approved, the worker with the most seniority receives the next highest priority.
  • In the event that two workers have equal seniority, the vacation will be decided by a coin toss.