DEFECTIVE SICK LEAVE RESTRICTION OVERTURNED BY FLRA
A Department of Army supervisor ordered an employee to provide medical justification for any sick leave despite the fact that the labor agreement said the agency had to have “legitimate reasons” to do so and warn the employee in advance of imposing the restriction. When the union grieved and took the case to arbitration, the arbitrator held the agency had no apparent legitimate reason nor had it counselled the employee in advanced of the restriction. Given the ”we hate all union employees” mentality of the White House and its appointees we expected FLRA to find some reason to overturn the arbitrator. But, lo and behold, it did not and its reasoning is worth remembering for when a similar situation arises in your unit.
On exceptions the agency argued to the Authority that the award is contrary to § 630.405 because that regulation does not require the Agency to justify a medical‑certificate requirement when evaluating sick‑leave requests. Section 630.405(a) says, in relevant part,
“An agency may also require a medical certificate . . . as to the reason for an absence . . . when the agency determines it is necessary.”[72] Further, § 630.405(b) says, in pertinent part, “An employee must provide administratively acceptable evidence or medical certification for a request for sick leave . . . after the date the agency requests such medical certification.”
The agency argued that the word “must” in § 630.405(b), obligates the empoloyee to furnish one whenever the agency requests. In other words, FLRA wrote that the Agency “essentially argues that it has an unreviewable right to determine that medical documentation is necessary.”
But the Authority has previously held that an arbitrator may scrutinize whether an agency “properly determined that medical documentation was necessary,” without running afoul of § 630.405(b). In doing so, the arbitrator may examine whether the determination was “reasonable” or an “abuse[ of] discretion.” Thus, the Authority has rejected the proposition that such determinations are unreviewable.
Further, the Authority has recognized that § 630.405 permits parties to negotiate, to the extent of an agency’s discretion, over the circumstances in which the agency will require medical certificates. Here, the parties negotiated the conditions set forth in Section 12, and the Arbitrator found that one of those conditions required the Agency to communicate to the grievant its legitimate reasons for requiring a medical certificate.
In short, § 630.405 does not provide the Agency with unlimited or unreviewable discretion to determine when it will require a medical certificate; the parties bargained over the conditions that apply to such a requirement; and the Arbitrator remedied the Agency’s failure to comply with one of those conditions. Under Authority precedent, the Arbitrator’s interpretation of the parties’ agreement is consistent with the Agency’s discretion under § 630.405, and we reject the Agency’s argument to the contrary.
FLRA also tossed out the agency argument that the arbitrator’s award violated management rights. It then upheld the arbitrator’s decision and his award of retroactive sick leave for all the times the agency imposed AWOL
For more details, see Dep’t. of the Army, Arizona and AFGE, Local 1662, 74 FLRA 317 (2026)
