Last week to use personal/cultural days!

This is the last week to use your Cultural & Personal Days! 
Remember to use any cultural holidays or personal days by the end of the calendar year, which, with administrative closure for the holidays starting this Friday Dec. 23rd, means use them or lose them in the next few days! (We have tried to get this word out through several previous email communications, this is just one last reminder!)

You may not have even realized you were still accumulating them, as cultural and personal days were incorporated into PTO, paid time off, when our contract has ratified on May 20, 2022. But, if you had a work anniversary or recently joined UVM staff, you may have accrued new personal days since then. You will lose those days if you don't use them by the end of this week! 

You will not accrue new personal days or cultural holidays in the new year - those days are now incorporated into the bucket of PTO, paid time off. As of our contract ratification on May 20th, 2022, you are accruing PTO at increased rates to account for the way that personal days and cultural holidays were 'rolled into' PTO.

When we reached understanding with the administration that people could use existing personal days and cultural holidays until the end of the calendar year, we assumed that only meant ones that were accrued pre-contract. We did not expect people to keep accruing new personal days because, again, they are now including in the PTO you've been accruing since May 20th. Of course, we won't look a gift horse, e.g. these extra personal days, in the mouth!

So, we know it's painful to try to squeeze them in in this tight timeframe. But these are bonus days that you wouldn't have gotten but for the administration deciding to administer them this way!

Going forward, you can still designate up to three of your PTO days a year as cultural holidays, with special protections from being made to work on them. See Article 28 of our Contract for more information.

For more on how to check your personal day and cultural holiday accrual, please see this handy guide, put together by one of our members!