NAPE/AFSCME member Heather Edwards, a Registered Nurse at the Central Nebraska Veterans Home (CNVH), recently prevailed in a grievance after her vacation leave was unreasonably denied.
During the CNVH vacation bidding process, Heather requested to use vacation leave from Friday, January 19 to Monday, January 22, 2024. In September, Heather was informed that only a portion of her leave request was approved.
NAPE/AFSCME successfully argued that the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs violated our union contract because it approved one portion of the request and unreasonably denied the other portion of the request. Our contract guarantees that during the CNVH vacation bidding process, leave requests will either be approved or denied in their entirety.
Heather has been a member of our union since she began working at CNVH, and she said she was glad that the union had her back throughout this process.
“Leave gets denied all the time and people are sometimes scared to bring it up,” she said. “But they’ve got to be aware that they have to fight for it.”
Heather did the right thing by reaching out to her union representative right away. If you feel your leave request has been unreasonably denied, contact us or a NAPE/AFSCME union steward right away.