Info on Special Administrative Leaves for Essentia Health Green Book and Regional Clinics
Essentia Health is currently putting more workers on the COVID-19 Special Administrative Leave (SAL) from the Green Book and the Regional Clinics. The majority of those in this wave are in direct patient care positions. Here is a summary of the agreement governing these leaves. Whether you volunteer, or are assigned, to the SAL, this is a temporary leave of absence for the period of April 1 – May 31, 2020. While on leave you retain your seniority. Your benefits remain intact (Health, Dental, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, Long-Term, and Short-Term Disability insurances). But note that you’re still responsible for your share of the health insurance premium, so you’ll need to reach out to HR to make arrangements for paying that. If you’re out on leave, you can be called back to work prior to May 31. In which case you’re expected to be able to return within 24 hours. Let the company know though if there is something in your life that would make it difficult for you to return in 24 hours. If a department has more than one person out on leave, and they start calling people back – they have to do so by seniority for the needed job classification. A senior employee may decline the recall provided there is a less senior employee available with the appropriate skill and competency to fill the recall need. The employee who is finally selected for recall has to go back. An employee recalled before May 31 won’t put on leave again within the period of April 1 – May 31 without mutual agreement. Workers may be needed to temporarily perform traditionally non-bargaining unit work. The Employer agrees this would end not later than forty-five days after the current Pandemic emergency subsides. On May 31, Essentia will have three options: -extend the SALs with mutual agreement from the union;-take everyone off of the SAL and bring them back to work;-take everyone off of the SAL and follow the low need/layoff/recall provisions stated in each of our above mentioned contracts if they determine that they need to start implementing actual layoffs.