## Facts

- Leroy DeJaynes was an hourly employee of Outboard Marine Corporation and was represented by a union under a collective-bargaining agreement (CBA).
- For several years, DeJaynes volunteered during the Christmas season as “Santa Claus” in a nearby town after completing his work shift.
- On December 23, 1968, the last scheduled workday before the Christmas holidays, DeJaynes asked to leave work 30 minutes early to travel to a Santa engagement.
- DeJaynes offered to work through his lunch period to make up the 30 minutes.
- DeJaynes’s supervisor rejected the lunch-time make-up proposal but gave DeJaynes permission to leave 30 minutes early.
- Under the CBA, December 24 and December 25 were designated paid holidays.
- DeJaynes worked 7.5 hours on December 23, rather than eight hours.
- DeJaynes did not work on December 24 or December 25 because they were holidays.
- DeJaynes did not work on December 26 because he was ill.
- The CBA conditioned holiday pay on working “full days” immediately before and after the holiday.
- The CBA also included a sick-leave provision under which an employee on sick leave needed to work only the day before or the day after the holiday to qualify for holiday pay.
- Another CBA provision defined a “full workday” as eight hours.
- Outboard denied DeJaynes holiday pay for December 24 and December 25 because he did not work an eight-hour day on December 23 and did not work at all on December 26.
- DeJaynes filed a grievance seeking reimbursement for the denied holiday pay and related losses, and the dispute proceeded to arbitration.

## Issues

1. Whether DeJaynes met the CBA’s holiday-pay eligibility requirements when he worked 7.5 hours on the last scheduled workday before the holidays after receiving supervisory permission to leave early.
2. Whether the CBA’s sick-leave eligibility provision applied when DeJaynes was ill on the scheduled workday after the holidays, and, if so, whether his work on the day before the holiday satisfied the requirement.
3. Whether management’s authorization for DeJaynes to leave early prevented Outboard from treating the day as not “worked” for holiday-pay qualification purposes.

## Decision

- The arbitrator sustained the grievance and directed Outboard to pay DeJaynes holiday pay for December 24 and December 25, with make-whole relief consistent with the CBA.
- The arbitrator reasoned that Outboard could not approve DeJaynes’s early departure, decline his offer to make up the time, and then use the resulting 30-minute shortfall to deny a bargained-for holiday benefit.
- The arbitrator treated the day-before requirement as satisfied under the circumstances and applied the CBA’s sick-leave provision to avoid forfeiture of holiday pay where DeJaynes’s post-holiday absence was due to illness.
- A dissenting arbitrator would have applied the eight-hour “full workday” definition strictly and denied holiday pay.

## Legal Principles

- Holiday-pay conditions tied to working the scheduled day(s) before and after a holiday are generally enforced to encourage attendance, but interpretation turns on the contract’s text, structure, and purpose.
- Where management affirmatively authorizes an early departure and rejects a reasonable offer to make up missed time, the employer may be barred from using the resulting shortfall as a basis to deny holiday pay.
- A sick-leave exception to “work before and after” rules is read to prevent loss of holiday pay due to illness, particularly when the employee otherwise reports for work on the qualifying day required by the exception.
- Even when a CBA defines a “full workday” by hours, arbitrators may distinguish between unauthorized absences and employer-approved schedule deviations when deciding eligibility for benefit provisions.

## Conclusion

In *Outboard Marine Corp.*, the arbitrator resolved a grievance over denied Christmas holiday pay where the employee left 30 minutes early with supervisory permission on the last workday before the holiday and then missed the first workday after the holiday due to illness; interpreting the CBA’s “full day” requirement alongside its sick-leave alternative, the arbitrator concluded the employer could not rely on an employer-approved, minor time shortfall to deny holiday-pay eligibility and ordered payment for the holidays.


Outboard Marine Corp., 54 Lab. Arb. Rep. 112 (1969)