In her June 11, 2020 decision, Arbitrator MacPherson rejected the Union’s proposal to reduce the number of pay increment levels and raise minimum wage levels for employees hired on or after February 1st, 2013.
However, her decision is imposing a change to the urban collective agreement that deserves particular attention.
HOURLY RATE OF TEMPORARY EMPLOYEES
From now on, temporary employees will be able to move through pay increments, regardless of when they were hired. As soon as they reach 1,000 hours of work in a year (January 1st to December 31st), they will progress to the next pay increment starting with the next pay period.
This change applies as of January 1st, 2019. This means that if in 2019 a temporary employee has reached 1,000 hours of work in that year, they will be entitled to the pay increase starting in the pay period following the thousandth hour. In such cases, the employee would be entitled to a retroactive payment from the pay period that follows the 1000th hour worked in 2019. The same applies for the year 2020.
It will therefore be very important to check if you have reached 1,000 hours of work for these 2 years and to compile your hours for the following years. Remember that the increase between each pay increment can be significant.
THE WORK AHEAD
As you can see, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that temporary employees can move up the pay increments when they are entitled to it and also to ensure that Canada Post converts the hours worked by temporary employees to regular jobs when justified. More on staffing in group 1 will follow in another bulletin.
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
The fight for decent rather than precarious jobs must continue. We will also, very soon, have to bring back to the forefront the correction of the injustice created by the back-to-work legislation of 2011, and perpetuated by the law of 2018, with respect to the wage scale applicable to new employees hired on or after February 1st, 2013.
In Solidarity,
Carl Girouard
National Grievance Officer
2019/2023 Bulletin # 150
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