Employe’s Year
5
(continued from page one)
Easter Monday and two extra days at
Christmastime were added to the previous
list of employe holidays, bringing the
total from five holidays per year to
eight in 1969. Also, any employe who is
scheduled to work on a holiday will now
receive two and one-half times his usual
pay, or, if he prefers, one and one-half
times his usual pay plus a substitute day
off with pay.
Another new policy passed last year
concerning vacations will permit service
and maintenance employes who have at
least four years of service at Duke to
take three weeks vacation a year be
ginning in 1970. Service and main
tenance employes who have been at
Duke for nine years or more will now
get four weeks off a year.
A policy has also established overtime
rates for work over 8 hours per day at
one and one-half times the employe's
normal rate of pay. Employes were also
assured of a 15-minute relief break for
each four hours worked.
Room and board coverage through the
University's group hospitalization plan
was increased from $12 to $20 per day
on one option and from $18 to $25 on
the other at no additional cost to the
employe. In addition, a third hospital
ization plan which provides semi-private
room coverage along with added benefits
for special nursing, intensive care, and
outpatient treatment was made available
to all employes at a small extra charge.
Funeral leave and maternity leave
policies were both liberalized, and a new
plan to provide up to two hours off with
pay to enable employes to vote in na
tional elections was set up.
Also, employes called for jury duty
will receive their regular rate of pay for
up to eight hours a day during the entire
time they must serve on the jury.
New policies concerning continuous
service credit, continued employment
past normal retirement age, training and
development, weekend work premiums,
and emergency call-back were adopted.
In addition, a totally revised grievance
procedure passed in 1969 established that
employes could be supported in grievance
meetings by another employe or an
Employes' Council member. The policy
also specifies that discharge grievances
must be handled in three days.
Employes Council
Though the machinery which estab
lished the Employes' Council was set up
in late 1968, it was the year 1969 that
marked the first meetings of the group.
Representatives from the technical and
clerical, service, and maintenance divi
sions of the Council met with the Uni
versity's Personnel Policy Committee to
discuss possible new policies, air prob
lems, and try to work out mutually
acceptable solutions.
Discussions range over a wide variety
of subjects brought up by members of
the Council. The members had a hand
in developing many of the new policies
adopted last year.
If the council and the University
Personnel Policy Committee cannot a-
gree, the matter is referred to DUERAC
(Duke University Employe Relations Ad
visory Committee), an impartial faculty
body set up to mediate disputes con
cerning personnel policy, and when nec
essary, to recommend solutions.
"It is designed to make sure that any
employe who has the desire and the
interest is given every opportunity to
advance himself or herself educationally
as well as to increase the possibilities of
greater upward mobility in the health
field for employes of Duke University,"
he explained.
The PEP program is distinct from,
but cooperates with, the Duke Employe
Training and Development Center on
Erwin Road.
The center already offers a number of
classes for employes including a high
school completion program, a class in
basic reading skills, secretarial skills, typ
ing, hospital supervision, and many other
courses.
The program has been characterized
as Duke's desire, as an educational in
stitution, to provide not only education
from the inside out but also from the
inside in, for its own employes in the
University and the Medical Center.
No one pretends that there is not
still room for improvement at Duke,
but for nonacademic employes, 1969
was surely a good beginning.
MR. LEE
P. E. P. Program
The newly announced program called
Paths for Employe Progress, or PEP, is a
recognition on the part of the Medical
Center that many employes have the
potential and the interest to move up the
job ladder and that they should be given
the opportunity to do so.
The program, set up last year but
expected to move into actual operation
this year, is being developed by Howard
Lee, mayor of Chapel Hill, former di
rector of employe relations at Duke and
currently assistant to the director of
medical education.
"The overall purpose and objective,"
Lee said, "is to provide a central office
to help employes learn about and take
advantage of any and all educational
programs in the allied health field.
LAUNDRY PARTY—Employes at
the hospital laundry held a Christmas par
ty December 23 in the laundry dining
room. Following refreshments, the group
sang Christmas carols, (photo by Dave
Hooks)