NMA Interpretations
Floating Holidays Under the National Maintenance Agreements
Last month, our nation celebrated Presidents’ Day. The National Maintenance Agreements provides for use of this holiday and floating holiday. With this in mind, it may be well to consider questions regarding the observance of the Presidents’ Day Federal holiday, as well as, issues surrounding the use of Presidents’ day as a floating holiday as outlined in Article XI of the National Maintenance Agreements. This year, 1999, the Presidents’ Day holiday fell on Monday, February 15. Any work performed on this day, when working under the terms of the National Maintenance Agreements was paid at, "the rate applicable in the appropriate local agreement not to exceed double time." However, Section 3 of that same Article provides for the use of the Presidents’ Day holiday as a floating holiday to be celebrated on an alternate day, provided the local Building Trades Council makes a formal request of the Committee. In granting the floating holiday, the Committee has granted permission to observe holiday’s as common as the Friday after Thanksgiving and as obscure as Pioneer Day and Mardi Gras Day.Anytime a local Building Trades Council requests the observance of a floating holiday after Presidents’ Day has past (e.g. a request is made in October 1999 to observe the Friday after Thanksgiving as the floating holiday in 1999) the Committee approves the observance of that holiday for the following year. This practice often leads to confusion. The local Building Trades Council is left asking, "Why can’t we observe our floating holiday this year !"
The answer lies in the timing of the request made by the Building Trades Council. If the formal request is made prior to observance of Presidents’ Day, the local Building Trades Council may observe the floating holiday requested, in the year that the request was made. However, when that Council makes request on a date after Presidents’ Day, the Committee presumes that Presidents’ Day was already observed by the Council, and is therefore, not entitled to an additional holiday.
A solution to this problem, when a local Council decides it would like to observe a holiday, other than those stated in the National Maintenance Agreements, is to make sure the request is tendered to the Committee well in advance of the holiday in question and most certainly, prior to Presidents’ Day.
The NMAPC will be sending out a complete listing of those Building Trades Councils which have opted to utilize a day other than Presidents’ Day to all signatory contractors in the immediate future.
August 20, 2004
