Before you use the “I gotta work” excuse for not voting on Tuesday, know this: Your boss is required by law to give you time off to cast your ballot.
Illinois employers must allow workers up to two hours time off between the opening and closing of the polls. First, employees must give notice that they need the time and employers can specify what hours you can take. Also, employers aren’t required to pay workers for their time at the polls.
That helps, but you’d think in a state in which people take pride in voting early and often and the political machine has managed to dig up votes from corpses, we’d have the Cadillac of get-out-the-vote laws. Not even close. In 20 states, employees must be paid for time spent voting, reports CCH Inc., a Riverwoods-based provider of employment law information.
Another slow day
Griping about one’s workload usually doesn’t raise eyebrows. But about 20 Ft. Worth postal workers have taken their complaints to their U.S. rep–to protest they have nothing to do.
The workers, injured on the job and re-assigned to light-duty clerical jobs, have written a letter asking U.S. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) for help. They say they want to be productive but instead spend 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. reading or talking among themselves.
“Our requests to work have been denied,” one employee said. “It’s a waste of money.”
A postal spokesman said the workers “are in a holding pattern” while the Postal Service evaluates their physical limitations to find positions for which they are best suited.
The post office also is undergoing a nationwide restructuring and faces declining mail volume, which also complicates the situation, postal spokesman McKinney Boyd said.
The idle employees said they’d love to answer the phones as customer-service representatives, work as window clerks or perform other kinds of customer service in the lobbies.
Speaking of getting nothing done . . .
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Ever wonder how you spend eight hours at the job and yet cross nothing off your to-do list?
Usually it’s because you’re putting out fires, according to a study of the work habits of 1,350 managers in seven countries, including the U.S. Managers instead should spend more time making plans and sticking to them, said Alan Steelman, executive vice president of Proudfoot Consulting, which conducted the study.
It’s not that managers don’t have an idea about what slows them down: 31 percent cited poor planning, nearly 22 percent blamed inept management and 14 percent said it was low morale.
Reluctant to rehab?
Workers who are determined to kick a drug or alcohol habit may think twice before using their employer’s health insurance to help do it.
According to a survey of 1,101 insured employees by the Minnesota-based Hazelden Foundation, more than one in five employees said if they sought coverage for rehabilitation, they would face negative consequences at work. Workers feared being fired to losing a license to failing to get a promotion.
Employers should communicate to workers that they have nothing to fear in seeking treatment, said William Moyers of Hazelden, a pioneer in addiction treatment. Federal laws protect the identity of employees who access insurance benefits for any medical service, including substance abuse.