Hello Sisters, Brothers and Friends,
Most of you received retroactive salary payments last week following the signing of the new collective agreement. We are aware that many members are wondering whether they received the correct amounts, and many of you are having difficulty understanding the pay stubs issued by the employer.
Many of our members have decided to contact the Agency's Compensation Client Service Centre (CCSC) to validate the information and better understand the pay stubs in order to ensure that the employer is paying them all the amounts to which they are entitled. Since last Wednesday, the Service Centre has been inundated with calls from members on this subject.
In order to fully understand and properly assess the situation, I had a discussion with the Director of the Agency's Corporate Compensation Division. As a result of this conversation, I would like to share with you the following information:
The CCSC was able to perform validation and quality control, and we were informed that nearly 96% of UTE members received their payment within 10 cents, and that 99.5% of members received at least as much money as they should have. The employer has indicated that it wants to ensure that our members receive the support they need when it comes to compensation, while at the same time ensuring that the CCSC is not burdened by the number of calls when there are no actual compensation issues.
The employer has indicated that the CCSC is already taking steps to identify discrepancies and rectify them as soon as possible. Priority is given to the most significant discrepancies.
It is also important to know that it is not only incomplete or insufficient payments that have been made by the CCSC, but also overpayments. Until further notice, priority is given to processing incomplete or insufficient payments. After that, overpayments will be processed.
I would also like to inform you that the employer will soon publish a compensation update on Infozone to give employees more information. In this update, the employer will provide you with links to important information to help you understand pay stubs and how calculations are made by the CCSC. This should answer most of your questions about the processing of retroactive payments.
Accordingly, the employer is asking that our members do not contact the CCSC at this time if they have any questions about the processing of retroactive payments, and especially if it is a problem of understanding pay stubs, as the upcoming update should answer their questions. Of course, if a member has a major pay problem, he/she should continue to contact the CCSC. The goal is simply to avoid unnecessarily overloading the Centre, so that compensation agents can continue to process as many files as possible as quickly as possible.
Our members who are compensation employees work very hard and are extremely busy. I would like to thank them for all their hard work and dedication to the Agency's employees. It's important to keep in mind that they do everything possible to serve employees well, and I ask our members contacting the CCSC to remain polite and courteous with their colleagues who are there to serve and assist them. It is also important to note that UTE members are the first to receive their retroactive payments following the signing of the new collective agreement, whereas Treasury Board employees will not receive their payments until October.
In closing, I would like to mention that the employer is still unable to confirm when the $2,500 lump-sum payment will be made. However, the employer has committed to informing us as soon as possible, and we will issue a communiqué to this effect when we obtain said confirmation.
In Solidarity,
Marc Brière
National President
Union of Taxation Employees