SARATOGA SPRINGS Judge backs City Hall worker Sick time need not be used for getting a mammogram BY TATIANA ZARNOWSKI Gazette Reporter
A judge has ruled that a city employee should get paid for the time she spent getting a mammogram. The decision sets a precedent for local governments to pay employees for up to four hours a year to go to breast and prostate cancer screenings without using their sick or vacation time, said Ed Molitor, spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) in Albany. “It’s got statewide impact,” Molitor said, noting CSEA has filed lawsuits against two other government employers in the state on behalf of employees who were docked sick hours for going to screenings. A law that Gov. David Paterson signed last week clarifies that local government and school district employees do get this benefit, which was afforded to state employees in 2002. A 2007 law originally gave local government employees the time off but not all municipalities interpreted the law the same way. Saratoga Springs city officials interpreted it to mean workers were not on the clock but would use sick time for the cancer screenings. CSEA filed the lawsuit on Kathy Moran’s behalf in February in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County, seeking interpretation of the 2007 law. The city deducted two hours from her sick time in October for a mammogram appointment. Judge Thomas D. Nolan Jr. ordered the city to restore Moran’s two hours of sick time in a decision dated July 24. “I’m sorry that it had to go this far,” Moran said Tuesday. “I had hoped that we would be able to work this out.” She is a secretary in the city’s Accounts Department and is also the president of the local City Hall chapter of CSEA. Molitor said CSEA recently won a similar legal case in Orange County and he thinks a case in Erie County will become moot because of the new law and the precedent here. He said the legal wins have not yet resulted in any CSEA employees asking for help in getting their own sick time restored. But he expects local CSEA presidents to find out which employees could qualify for the sick time credit and help them get it. Moran said in February that other women in City Hall had been docked sick time for going to have mammograms done and she filed the lawsuit to help everyone. On Tuesday, she said she didn’t know whether the city would give the other employees their sick time back retroactively. Mayor Scott Johnson said that he got the court decision late Tuesday afternoon and that the city has not decided whether or not to appeal it. “It’s an unfortunate example of the unfunded state mandates that the city must both comply with and fund,” Johnson said. He said that he isn’t sure whether taxpayers favor paying city employees for the screenings. Employees in the City Hall unit of CSEA get 12 sick days a year, and the days accrue from one year to the next. “Speaking as a person that comes from the private sector, that’s a lot of sick time,” Johnson said. After he took office at the beginning of January, the city was planning to develop a policy to address paying employees when they take time off to receive medical screenings. But the policy was not developed before CSEA filed the lawsuit, Johnson said. “We had hoped to have some discussions with them prior to filing the suit, but that did not happen".
And they wonder why this state is in the mess that it is in! This is all just plain nonsense!! 'sick time' is for anything related to medical. But then this is the state workers we're talking about here. They should add additional days off and label them 'test time'. So now they will have not only vacation time and sick time but now they can have TEST TIME! Doesn't anyone else think this is beyond bizarre?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
WT*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what is right is right....they must be afraid of being called sexist/predjudiced etc......let their freakin' union pay for it......DORKS, SCHMUCKS, A@#ES ----there just isn't enough time in the day to type what I want to type...... > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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