EC Collective Bargaining: Parental Leave and Parental Allowance
July 13, 2004
There were two outstanding issues regarding parental leave and its related allowance when talks broke off at the bargaining table. The first issue is the obligation to take parental leave in a single period when the Employment Insurance Act (EIA) allows Canadians to claim benefits for parental leave in non-consecutive periods. The second issue is the application in the collective agreement of the parental leave allowance to term employees.
Consecutive Weeks
The parental leave article of the collective agreement was formulated in a manner that would allow our members to take advantage of parental benefits granted by the Employment Insurance Act (EIA) without having to take another form of leave. An EC member is allowed to take unpaid leave specifically to take care of a new-born or child for a maximum of 37 weeks as long as he or she qualifies for parental benefits under the EIA.
The entitlement is found in Article 21.06, Parental Leave Without Pay. Paragraph (a) of the article reads as follows:
For some parents, the incongruity of the collective agreement with the Act is not a problem. However, many EC members of CAPE have brought to the Association’s attention hardship caused by the lack of flexibility in the collective agreement. Personal circumstances vary from family to family. The Act shows sensitivity to the variance and according to CAPE, so should the collective agreement.
Term Employees
As result of the efforts of SSEA and CUPTE and other unions, new parents on unpaid parental leave receive an supplementary allowance to EI parental benefits. This allowance or top-up is paid out by the employer for the purpose of ensuring that federal public service parents who choose to take parental leave continue to receive a total of 93% of their weekly rate of pay during the period of leave. This top-up is what the collective agreement recognizes in Article 21.07 as a parental allowance. During the 2-week waiting period when no EI parental benefits are available to the qualified claimant, he employer covers the entire 93%.
The principal condition that the EC member or other federal public service employees must meet in order to receive the allowance is to agree to return to work for a period equal to the period he or she was on parental leave. If the employee does not return for the full period, or if the employee returns for only a portion of the period, the employee must reimburse the employer an amount of money calculated according to a formula found in paragraph 21.07(a)(iii)(C).
For most EC members who choose to take parental leave, the return-to-work condition is not a problem. However, it is a problem for those members who are term employees and for whom a return to work for the full period is made impossible simply because their term lapses before they can work a period equivalent to the time taken for parental leave. This problem exists also for members who take maternity leave as the wording for maternity allowance is the same as the wording for parental allowance.
The wording that CAPE proposed at the bargaining table, for both parental and maternity allowances, gives the employer the incentive to extend the term employee’s period of employment for the purpose of covering the entire period owed to the employer. Accordingly, under our proposal, if the employer does not extend the term for at least as long as required to pay back the time during which an employee received a parental allowances or a maternity allowance or both, then the requirement to pay back in money any time beyond the term of the employee’s contract would be waived. The employer’s response to our proposals regarding the conditions imposed upon terms who take parental and maternity leave was to refuse on the grounds that our proposals treated term employees more favourably than indeterminate employees.
CAPE’s position is not that the term employee be exempt from having to return to work for a period equivalent to the period the employee was in receipt of the parental allowance. On the contrary, CAPE’s position is that the term employee should benefit to the full extent of the parental and maternity allowance clauses by being allowed to return to work for an equivalent period even if such a return requires that the employee’s term be extended.
July 13, 2004
There were two outstanding issues regarding parental leave and its related allowance when talks broke off at the bargaining table. The first issue is the obligation to take parental leave in a single period when the Employment Insurance Act (EIA) allows Canadians to claim benefits for parental leave in non-consecutive periods. The second issue is the application in the collective agreement of the parental leave allowance to term employees.
Consecutive Weeks
The parental leave article of the collective agreement was formulated in a manner that would allow our members to take advantage of parental benefits granted by the Employment Insurance Act (EIA) without having to take another form of leave. An EC member is allowed to take unpaid leave specifically to take care of a new-born or child for a maximum of 37 weeks as long as he or she qualifies for parental benefits under the EIA.
The entitlement is found in Article 21.06, Parental Leave Without Pay. Paragraph (a) of the article reads as follows:
(a) Where an employee has or will have the actual care and custody of a new-born child (including the new-born child of a common-law partner), the employee shall, upon request, be granted parental leave without pay for a single period of up to thirty-seven (37) consecutive weeks in the fifty-two (52) week period beginning on the day on which the child is born or the day on which the child comes into the employee's care. (emphasis added)Paragraph (b) has comparable language for parents adopting a child. Both paragraphs clearly state that the leave is conditional on agreement by the employee to take one and only one period of leave to the maximum of 37 weeks (35 weeks + a 2 week waiting period). Thus, in contrast to the provisions of the Employment Insurance Act, there is no option to split the 37 weeks into more than one period. For example, a new parent cannot take a portion of the 37 weeks at the beginning of their spouse’s maternity leave, return to work and then take the remainder after their spouse’s maternity leave. In other words, while the Act allows more than one claim of parental leave during a 52-week period after a birth or adoption, the collective agreement prohibits this type of flexibility.
For some parents, the incongruity of the collective agreement with the Act is not a problem. However, many EC members of CAPE have brought to the Association’s attention hardship caused by the lack of flexibility in the collective agreement. Personal circumstances vary from family to family. The Act shows sensitivity to the variance and according to CAPE, so should the collective agreement.
Term Employees
As result of the efforts of SSEA and CUPTE and other unions, new parents on unpaid parental leave receive an supplementary allowance to EI parental benefits. This allowance or top-up is paid out by the employer for the purpose of ensuring that federal public service parents who choose to take parental leave continue to receive a total of 93% of their weekly rate of pay during the period of leave. This top-up is what the collective agreement recognizes in Article 21.07 as a parental allowance. During the 2-week waiting period when no EI parental benefits are available to the qualified claimant, he employer covers the entire 93%.
The principal condition that the EC member or other federal public service employees must meet in order to receive the allowance is to agree to return to work for a period equal to the period he or she was on parental leave. If the employee does not return for the full period, or if the employee returns for only a portion of the period, the employee must reimburse the employer an amount of money calculated according to a formula found in paragraph 21.07(a)(iii)(C).
For most EC members who choose to take parental leave, the return-to-work condition is not a problem. However, it is a problem for those members who are term employees and for whom a return to work for the full period is made impossible simply because their term lapses before they can work a period equivalent to the time taken for parental leave. This problem exists also for members who take maternity leave as the wording for maternity allowance is the same as the wording for parental allowance.
The wording that CAPE proposed at the bargaining table, for both parental and maternity allowances, gives the employer the incentive to extend the term employee’s period of employment for the purpose of covering the entire period owed to the employer. Accordingly, under our proposal, if the employer does not extend the term for at least as long as required to pay back the time during which an employee received a parental allowances or a maternity allowance or both, then the requirement to pay back in money any time beyond the term of the employee’s contract would be waived. The employer’s response to our proposals regarding the conditions imposed upon terms who take parental and maternity leave was to refuse on the grounds that our proposals treated term employees more favourably than indeterminate employees.
CAPE’s position is not that the term employee be exempt from having to return to work for a period equivalent to the period the employee was in receipt of the parental allowance. On the contrary, CAPE’s position is that the term employee should benefit to the full extent of the parental and maternity allowance clauses by being allowed to return to work for an equivalent period even if such a return requires that the employee’s term be extended.