Hello members,
The RETRO from the ratified contract will be paid out next week. I requested that the payment for those off on a declared emergency leave that it be paid upon you return as we did not want anything impacting your CERB. I have heard from HR and all retro will be paid next week including those off on Declared emergency leave. Here is the explanation that I received from HR yesterday.
Here’s some info on CERB that the payroll team provided.
CERB payments will not be impacted by the retro payments. CERB payments and qualifications are VERY different from EI payments/qualifications. CERB payments aren’t impacted by things like severance payments or retros because the qualifying criteria are:
When submitting your first claim, you cannot have earned more than $1,000 in employment and/or self-employment income for 14 or more consecutive days within the four-week benefit period of your claim.
When submitting subsequent claims, you cannot have earned more than $1,000 in employment and/or self-employment income for the entire four-week benefit period of your new claim.
When it says “you cannot have earned” the word earned is key because they ARE NOT earning the retro in these pay periods (the retro applies to the qualifying period to apply for CERB, NOT to the period when they are receiving the CERB payments). Therefore, they do NOT need to report this retro payment.
Hopefully this eases your concerns with employees on leave receiving retros.
Thanks
Connie McDonald
President CUPE 973