Ursula Stanley

Ursula Stanley’s daughter is now 3 years old. Stanley’s fight with the state over paid vacation and sick time is going on four years, and it isn’t over yet, but she hopes she’ll soon get her day in court.

Last week, in Washington County Superior Court, the Vermont Human Rights Commission filed a discrimination complaint on her behalf against the Vermont Agency of Transportation under the Parental and Family Leave Act.

Stanley, a resident of Williamstown, alleges that the state denied her paid vacation and sick-time benefits while she was out caring for her newborn baby in 2007. When she took 12 weeks of unpaid leave time under the Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act, from April to August that year, Stanley soon realized that the agency wasn’t accruing her paid vacation and sick time on her pay stubs.

Her supervisor contacted the human resource department at the agency, and Stanley says “she got the same answer I’d been getting: that I wasn’t supposed to accrue leave. And that’s always been their stance on unpaid family or parental leave — that you’re not going to accrue your leave-time benefits.”

“It’s been consistent forever,” Stanley says. “Everybody’s argument is, this (is) how we’ve always done it.”

But Stanley, 33, had researched the law and determined she was entitled to her sick and vacation time while she was out on unpaid leave. The civil engineer, who has designed bridges for the state for the last five years, stuck to her guns and initially lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in November 2007. Six weeks later, the agency “admitted” her “factual allegations, but denied that such action by the agency violated the Parental and Family Leave Act,” according to the Human Rights
Commission’s investigative report.

Last May, the commission tried to negotiate a settlement with the state Attorney General’s Office — to no avail. Robert Appel, executive director of the commission, says state statute is clear-cut: Workers are entitled to all of their employment benefits while they are out on unpaid leave to care for a child or family member.

“We tried to settle it beforehand, but now the court has to tell us what the law is, and we’ll see who’s right,” Appel says.

The Agency of Transportation asserts that the provision regarding employee benefits honored during unpaid leave under the Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act only applies to health insurance benefits, not paid leave-time accrual, according the commission’s report.

Stanley says her other benefits stayed intact while she was on unpaid leave.

“Their big argument was, when state statute said employment benefits, they meant only insurance, like medical insurance,” Stanley says. “One of my arguments back to that was we have a lot of employment benefits. We have leave time, we have an employee assistance program, we have retirement, and those all continued.”

This is the second case filed in a month against the state for alleged violations of workers’ rights. Earlier this month, Thomas Somers, Stanley’s lawyer, sued the state on behalf of 34 workers to recover
alleged unpaid overtime.

At first blush, Stanley’s case seems like a lot of fuss over a little bit of time – she is suing the state for 30 hours of sick time and 30 hours of vacation time. But if the commission proves the state has violated her
rights, the legal ramifications could be enormous for other state workers who take unpaid leave to care for an aged parent or newborn infant.

As part of the lawsuit, the commission “permanently enjoin(s) the State of Vermont from any further violations (of the law) not only with respect to Ms. Stanley, but also with respect to all similarly situated
employees.” The suit would also order the state to credit Stanley and other state workers, whose rights have been violated under the Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act, with their lost leave time.

Appel says, “The Legislature wouldn’t have passed this statute and not meant for it to be used broadly.”

Ironically, several of the state’s own Web sites interpret the law the same way in which the commission does. The Attorney General’s Office guidelines for the Vermont Family and Parental Leave Act state that “Employee/employer each pay the proportion of all benefits that they did during regular work time.” The Vermont Commission on Women’s Vermont Guide to Parental and Family Leave also says that during leave, employees earn their vacation and sick leave, and whatever other benefits the employer provides.” The Vermont Guide to Health Care Law 2006 and the Vermont Employment Law Handbook make similar statements.

Somers, Stanley’s lawyer, asserts that the state is acting as if it’s above the law. He says the state is “quite imperious” in its dealings with employees, and he said its unwillingness to settle with his client is a “contemptuous act.”

“Everyone who works for the state has this issue going on,” Somers says. “It’s amazing, because it flies in the face of the two agencies that enforce the law against private employers. It’s as if, (the state is
saying) well, we don’t have to comply with the law, and you’re going to have to fight us all the way to the Supreme Court to get your way.”

Three officials from the Attorney General’s Office and Department of Human Resources contacted for this story refused to comment, and information regarding the number of recent complaints filed by state workers under the Vermont Parental and Family Act isn’t collected by the Department of Human Resources, according to one official.

It would appear that the state has a lot to lose. If employees are allowed to accrue sick and annual leave during VPFLA, “the cost to the State would be between $127,757 and $201,000 per year,” according to a statement from John Berard, a labor relations specialist for the Vermont Department of Human Resources, cited in the commission’s investigative report.

Stanley’s lawyer alleges that dozens of state workers are denied sick and vacation time under the family and parental leave law.

“This going to affect a lot of employees and you know it’s going to cost the state some money,” Somers says. “They’re trying to delay, delay, delay and borrow this money from the employees, just like they’re doing with the overtime case.”

The financial repercussions of losing 60 hours of pay are not insignificant to Stanley. She says because she was denied those benefit hours, her husband lost time at work to care for their infant when Stanley was sick. In addition, Stanley says she had to argue with the Agency of Transportation in January of 2007, months before her daughter was born, over the unpaid leave. The Agency wanted her to use up her paid leave time first. She said AOT backed down eventually.

“What got me started was I knew I could take my leave unpaid — I had already done that research,” Stanley says. “We have a union contract and so I knew I could take it unpaid and when I said that she said well no I had to use up all my leave and then take it unpaid if I had leave time still and I didn’t really believe her and I started doing research and that’s when I realized that I was supposed to accrue, which they told me I couldn’t do either.”

Stanley describes her initial contact with the Human Rights Commission as “nerve wracking.”

“It took a long time before I would call the commission to even ask anything,” Stanley says. “When I did, I left my phone number, didn’t say where I worked or anything, but they obviously knew I was a state employee based on my phone number.”

She says she has not experienced any repercussions at work, but she is frustrated that the issue is taking so long to resolve.

“The Human Rights Commission decided in my favor, and the state still chose not to negotiate,” Stanley says. “Frankly, I don’t know their rationale, but I’m just assuming they’re waiting people out. They’re assuming that workers aren’t going to go through this.”

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