Ask AAP

Compensation for travel time?

A. Official UIUC policies on travel reimbursements are on the Web at:

www.oba.uiuc.edu/manual/central/sec15-1.html

I have found no policy on compensatory time for those required to work or travel outside normal 8:30--5 weekday hours, or on holidays, or in excess of 37.5 hours per week. Here are three relevant considerations:

1. What the mutual understanding was of the nature and duties of the position when one was appointed. Was compensation part of the official job description or appointment agreement? If not (as usual), was there a tacit understanding of the "gentleman's agreement" sort that unusual duties would be appropriately compensated with money or time away from one's usual post? It must be borne in mind that a petty accounting of hours or minutes is not appropriate for any kind of professional practice.
2. Supervisors and unit heads seem to be given wide latitude ("flexibility") in such matters, assuming -- sometimes contrary to fact -- that they will be normally decent, reasonable and humane people. If yours is not, there is little an individual can do other than either try to negotiate a fairer relationship for himself, or, failing that, to seek to terminate the relationship by looking toward replacing the supervisor with someone more reasonable.
3. You can seek and work toward the protection of a collective bargaining agreement between your professional organization (AAP) and the campus administration that will regulate extraordinary duties and prevent most such abuses.

Also, see my draft essay "Some Options".

--This month's answer provided by Ron Szoke

Send your questions about UIUC policy, employment/labor law, unions, and collective bargaining to aap@shout.net.