Dear City, Parks, Britannia and Ray-Cam members:
Our collective agreements with City, Parks, Britannia, and Ray-Cam provide paid sick leave for only a portion of the employees of these four employers.
For those employees previously not eligible for paid sick days under the collective agreement, the British Columbia Employment Standards Act was recently modified by the Provincial Government, making all employees of provincial jurisdiction employers eligible for five days off with pay annually due to personal illness or injury.
So, auxiliaries and temporary full-times (TFTs) previously ineligible for paid sick leave under the City, Parks, Britannia, or Ray-Cam collective agreements are now eligible for five sick days per calendar year under the Employment Standards Act. Unfortunately, the union was told that the City and Parks employers have not been providing this benefit to newly eligible auxiliaries and TFTs, and we are therefore also concerned that the Britannia and Ray-Cam employers are not providing this paid sick leave benefit to their newly eligible auxiliaries and TFTs either.
Therefore, if you have been an auxiliary or a temporary full-time employee for 90 days or more, and missed work due to personal illness or injury on or after March 31, 2022, please check your pay statements to determine whether you were paid for the shift or shifts missed due to illness or injury. If it appears that you did not receive any pay for your absence, please contact a union steward directly, or email the union office at email@cupe15.org to be connected with a steward.
More details about this statutory right can be found here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/time-off/leaves-of-absence#illness-or-injury
In solidarity,
John Geppert
Staff Representative