Performance of Service.
All letter carriers at free delivery offices shall be entitled to leave of absence, not to exceed fifteen days in each year, without loss of pay. The words “each year” mean fiscal year (July 1st to June 30th, inclusive), and carriers in the service on the first day of July are entitled to receive fifteen days’ vacation, inclusive of Sundays and holidays, at any time during the year when the postmaster can best spare them. Carriers entering the service after the first day of July are entitled to a pro rata leave of absence during the remainder of the fiscal year, equal to one and a quarter days for each month.
Carriers serving as members of the local Civil Service Boards during examinations, as members of the United States Militia of the District of Columbia, or as witnesses for the Government in the United States courts, shall be given leave with full pay during necessary absence occasioned by such service.
Postmasters may, in addition to the leave of absence provided by law, grant a leave of absence without pay to carriers in cases of illness, disability received in the service, or other urgent necessity, such leave not to exceed thirty days. An application for a leave of absence to cover a longer period of time must be made to the First Assistant Postmaster General (Division of Free Delivery) for suspension with loss of pay, or for removal from the service, as the circumstances may require.
When regular carriers are absent from duty for any cause, their places shall be supplied by substitute carriers. The Postmaster General is authorized to employ, when necessary, during the time such fifteen days’ leave of absence is granted to a letter carrier, such number of substitute letter carriers as may be deemed advisable, who shall be paid for the services rendered at the rate of six hundred dollars per annum.
Substitute carriers shall be assigned to duty by the postmaster, or his representative, and must never be called into service by carriers, except in cases of urgent necessity, when it is plainly impossible to notify the postmaster in time, either by telephone or messenger.
Substitute letter carriers will be paid one dollar per annum, payable quarterly. They also receive pay at the rate of $600 per annum when serving in place of carriers who have been granted annual leave of absence. The pro rata salary of carriers for whom they serve who are absent without pay is also given to them, as well as the pro rata salary of carriers who are granted leave of absence with full pay in order that they may serve as members of local Civil Service Boards in conducting examinations, as witnesses for the Government in United States courts, or as members of the United States Militia of the District of Columbia.
When substitutes serve for regular carriers on Sunday and perform the same amount of work the regular carrier would have performed on that day, they receive a full day’s pay.