This semester, Ball State University will find out if a recently adopted leave program for union employees will lead to increased productivity or a discontented work force.
In July, the Board of Trustees approved a university proposal that established a new plan for paid time off. The new plan eliminated paid sick leave and reduced the amount of paid hours an employee can take off. It also created an income protection bank account, which employees can use to bank hours, as well as a short-term disability plan.
Under the old system, 80 unchallenged hours were granted to each employee every year. Now, employees get 40 hours of time that they can use if the reason for the leave is approved by a supervisor. In addition to those 40 hours, employees can take 24 hours a year out of the income protection bank account.
The short-term disability program -- which both sides did agree would be beneficial -- provides pay to employees between the eighth and 182nd days of a verifiable illness or injury. Ball State pays 75 percent of the disability pay on this plan, while the employee pays the other 25 percent.
Tom Morrison, associate vice president for human resources and state relations, believes the new system will increase attendance, which in turn increases productivity and efficiency.
"We understand that change is difficult, and this is something that's been in place for a long period of time," Morrison said. "What we have to do is we have to implement this plan as fairly as possible, and we commit to our employees that we will absolutely do that.
"We have to make sure that they are trained in how it's gong to be implemented."
Les Richardson, union president and electrician for the university, believes people will lose jobs because of the policy, and workers may be forced to come to work sick.
"It's really a hostile work environment now, and it's getting worse," he said.
Morrison disagrees with the argument that this policy will force workers to come to work sick.
"I want to be clear about this: We don't want them to come to work sick," he said.
Even though employees see a reduction in the amount of paid hours they get, Morrison said the policy is like a trade off. The University has taken away hours but has given workers benefits like the income protection account and short-term disability plan.
"There's a reduction in the number of sick days because we took the sick days and transported that to the short-term disability plan," Morrison said. "So, when you look at total number of days, yes, there's a reduction in the total number of days, but we increased the employees' flexibility."
Morrison and Richardson disagree over whether or not the transition to this new policy is going well.
"So far, our employees have done a very good job of transitioning to the new plan," Morrison said.
However, Richardson said people have already been discharged.
"Unfortunately, the only way they're going to really realize what they've done is when they start losing their good people," Richardson said. "They're worried about a handful of people that don't want to work, that aren't coming to work, so they change the rules to where they're too strict now that they're going to be firing their 20- and 30-year people."
Gaining the trust of the employees by working closely with them -- so they understand the policy -- will be the university's biggest task, Morrison said.
"Once employees start to see that it can work to their advantage, that's what rebuilds that trust," he said. "We've already had some people that are figuring that out."
Morrison said that in the end, these changes have been made because the university must be held accountable to the students and taxpayers who fund the institution.
"The goals are to increase attendance, which increases productivity increases efficiently and saves jobs," Morrison said. "That's what we're tying to do because also, at the end of the day, we're accountable to the people who provide the funding for Ball State University.
"We have an obligation to be as efficient in this work force as we possibly can be and to spend that funding wisely, and that's what we're trying to do."
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