A Painful Implementation Phase for the Financial Incentives Plan
May 3, 2003
The employer has announced a "zero tolerance" policy towards undefined hours in Operations with regards to the Financial Incentives Plan. It appears some managers have even threatened to withdraw incentive payments should a TR have even one lone undefined hour during the whole year. All this despite the fact such a criterion for refusing payment is not found anywhere in the Memorandum of Understanding, which does not contain either a single mention of the concept of undefined hours. One could not imagine a better approach for sabotaging implementation of the new provisions, especially in light of other factors like the disappearance of the ultra specialized billing rate without any regard to the impact on translators working in high technology sectors.
It will be possible to file a grievance only if and when the employer does indeed refuse an incentive payment, in about a year or so. Our advice to people who want to protest right now this attitude from the employer is simple: stop trying to earn an incentive, slow down your pace of work and make sure you work only at the level necessary to just fulfill your performance objectives. You won't earn an incentive and the employer will probably keep on with his silly policy, but at least the Bureau won't benefit from TRs' increased productivity
May 3, 2003
The employer has announced a "zero tolerance" policy towards undefined hours in Operations with regards to the Financial Incentives Plan. It appears some managers have even threatened to withdraw incentive payments should a TR have even one lone undefined hour during the whole year. All this despite the fact such a criterion for refusing payment is not found anywhere in the Memorandum of Understanding, which does not contain either a single mention of the concept of undefined hours. One could not imagine a better approach for sabotaging implementation of the new provisions, especially in light of other factors like the disappearance of the ultra specialized billing rate without any regard to the impact on translators working in high technology sectors.
It will be possible to file a grievance only if and when the employer does indeed refuse an incentive payment, in about a year or so. Our advice to people who want to protest right now this attitude from the employer is simple: stop trying to earn an incentive, slow down your pace of work and make sure you work only at the level necessary to just fulfill your performance objectives. You won't earn an incentive and the employer will probably keep on with his silly policy, but at least the Bureau won't benefit from TRs' increased productivity