Don't suffer in SILENCE!

Abuse of No Limit status

Abuse of NL occurs when: 1) the employee's work week is altered to make the employee a 40 hour a week employee, 2) refusing to grant comp time or 3) treating employees differently with respect to allotments of compensatory time.

During the negotiations for the 2003-2007 Agreement, the Office of Employee Relations agreed to look into cases of abuse of NL. Please feel free to call the Council office about comp time problems so that we can take advantage of OER's offices in resolving problems.

How to deal with abuse of NL and denial of comp time

Each employee who believes his/her supervisor is abusing the employee's status and/or is unreasonably denying comp time should do the following:

Keep a log in the form of the chart showing each day of the week. The chart should record the employee’s starting and quitting times. Where you are working extra hours, you should indicate why and for how long.

  1. Make sure that the supervisor knows of the extra time being worked and why.
  2. Your log should be clear and concise and constructed with the idea that it will be shared with State officials.
  3. Alert your local and the Council staff rep assigned to your campus and work with that rep on your case and the documentation
  4. Your log should be at a minimum of two months duration or the amount of time necessary to show a pattern.
  5. Once your log is completed, call the Council office (908-964-8476) to speak to a staff representative. He or she will review it with you and take your case up with the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (OER).

Background Information

Most professional staff are aware that their titles are “No Limit” titles. The term “No Limit” or “NL” comes from regulations governing employees who are covered by Department of Personnel regulations.

Although state college/university employees are no longer part of the Department of Personnel, each of the Assistant Director, Professional Services Specialist and Administrative Assistant titles governing the employment of the members of our professional staff is still designated as “NL” based on past practice. Nonetheless, Department of Personnel regulations remain the only source of a definition of “NL.”

In the regulations, “No Limit” is contrasted to fixed workweeks of 35 or 40 hours. According to the regulations, NL titles are one salary range higher than 35-hour week titles and one salary range lower than 40 hours work week titles. NL in practice means that employees in positions bearing this designation may be asked to work extra hours per day or per week where special needs of the office require more time.

It is clear from the above, that NL does not mean that an employee can be asked to work so much time on a regular basis that he or she ends up in the 40 hour a week category.

Authority for compensatory time

The Department of Personnel provides that NL titles may be granted compensatory time on the following basis:

According to N.J.A.C. 4A: 3-5 (d) 2 provides in pertinent part: “Employees in non-limited titles (NL, NE) who meet unusual work time requirements may, at the discretion of the appointing authority, be compensated through either a provision for flexible work patterns or a grant of comparable amounts of time off to a maximum of one hour for each hour of unusual work time ….

Thus, the regulations provide, at a minimum, that compensatory time is an appropriate way of dealing with unusual work requirements. This means that a college/university may not unreasonably deny compensatory time and has the authority to grant it on an hour for hour basis.

Top of Page

Close this Window