It must prevent groups of employees from working or reporting to work. Part-Time Flexible Employees are entitled to credit for hours worked plus enough administrative leave to complete their scheduled tour. The combination of straight time worked and administrative leave may not exceed 8 hours in a service day. Second, the disaster must be general, rather than personal, in scope and impact. Third, it must prevent groups of employees from working or reporting to work.
Snowstorms are most often the reason for granting administrative leave.
However, the arbitrator looked to the fact that even though there were no mail deliveries, over 5000 employees in a nearby military base, both civilian and military, reported for work. Thus, the impact on the community was not great enough to constitute a disaster, and administrative leave was denied. A disaster must be an extreme situation. In this case, where the storm did not block main roads and during which many businesses were able to operate normally, the arbitrator denied administrative leave. Many arbitrators will consider the number of absences on a given day, but most look to the pattern of absenteeism to make a determination of scope and impact.