Know Your Rights, Second Quarter of 2011

Paid Release Time to Donate Blood

Many of our members are not aware that the City provides paid release time for employees who donate blood at an MEA-sponsored blood drive or when the Blood Bank issues an emergency request.

According to Article 64 of the MOU, “An employee shall receive paid release time, not to exceed two hours, when he or she donates blood at the annual MEA blood drive and/or in response to an emergency request from the Blood Bank. The City shall release the employee for the actual time the employee spends in any travel to and from the Blood donation site, as well as for the time spent at the site, in any event not to exceed a maximum of two hours of release time. The employee shall submit his or her ‘blood receipt’ to the payroll clerk as verification of the donation.”

City employees have always been incredibly generous, but it helps to know that they won’t have to take time off work in order to donate the gift of blood.

The Blood Bank must collect 400 pints of blood each day in order to meet the needs of area hospital patients who are battling life-threatening conditions. We hope that you will join us in our efforts this summer at our annual blood drive. We will provide additional details as the event approaches and encourage you to contact MEA if you are ever denied paid release time during our blood drive.