Robyn Benson, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, was unequivocal when she said the union will not be part of any negotiations with the government to change existing sick leave as part of the sweeping changes expected to modernize the management of sick leave and disability in the public service.
“We are not interested in trading off sick leave. It is not going to happen,” said Benson in an interview.
“If the government was looking to put a fire under the public service workers they have done it,” said Benson. “Our members are positioning themselves to let this government know we are not trading, it, selling it, swapping it or giving it away.”
Unions are bracing for the government to announce the next phase of the disability management initiative Treasury Board and other departments have been working on for several years to get sick and injured workers back to work faster and to tackle a more than $5-billion liability in banked sick days.
On any given day, nearly 19,000 public servants are booked off on some kind of sick leave. On average, federal employees were absent 12.5 days last year — twice the rate of employees in the private sector. In the core public service, workers are off an average of 18 days, when paid and unpaid sick leave, workers’ compensation and disability are taken into account.
The Conservatives are counting on huge savings and many expect the government will develop a short-term disability plan to replace banked sick leave and create a disability case management system that puts more emphasis on prevention, rehabilitation and wellness to get the ill and injured back to work faster.
The plan would also include an overhaul of the long-term disability plan. Critics say it’s an archaic 43-year-old plan that has had few changes since it was created and does little to help sick and disabled public servants get better and return to work.
Public servants get 15 days of sick leave a year, which they can accumulate and carry over year to year. Sick employees must exhaust their accumulated sick leave before they qualify for disability, which covers 70 per cent of salary.
The disability plan has a 13-week waiting period so anyone with less that 13 weeks of accumulated sick leave is off work without pay other than employment insurance sick benefits.
The government has proposals to replace the existing 15-day a year model with one that would give public servants seven or five days of personal leave. Once those days are exhausted, employees would go on short-term disability and would be entitled to 70 per cent of salary.
Unused days can’t be accumulated or the number that could would be limited.
It’s unclear what would happen to banked sick leave under a new plan.
Some say the government could also change the contribution rates for the disability insurance to a 50-50 cost sharing like it did in the last budget e for pension premiums. The government now contributes 85 per cent and employees pay the remaining 15 per cent. Executives get
100 per cent of their premiums paid.
The government would have to negotiate any changes to sick leave with unions as collective agreements begin to expire in 2014. It could resort to legislation but disability experts have long cautioned that joint union-management collaboration is critical to the success of any new disability management plan. They argue unions are legally responsible to represent their members’ interests and should have a say on designing a new regime.
The prospect of losing sick leave has public servants in the uproar.
Unions’ social media sites and emails are burning with protests from public servants workers, many of whom are still furious they were forced to surrender voluntary severance pay for a .75 increase wage increase. PSAC was the first to negotiate that deal, which created a backlash and huge division within the union that PSAC leaders don’t want to risk again with sick leave.
Ron Cochrane, co-chair of the joint union and management National Joint Council, said he expects most of the 18 federal unions will be united on keeping existing sick leave provisions.
“We all believe that a mistake was made with respect to severance pay and that I think that holds for the entire public service. It’s not just unions and unionized members, but unrepresented employees too, who thought we got a bad deal. If they let this happen again on sick leave, it will place the whole benefits package on a slippery slope.
What will be next?”
Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said he won’t get drawn into speculation until he has seen the budget.
He said the rumours have been damaging and highly demoralizing to public servants who are in a“panic” and “uproar.” He said the average yearly sick days used by his members don’t come close to the illness and injury absent rates tabulated by government.
“Where do those numbers come from anyway?” he said.
“But I’m not going to sabre-rattle when I don’t know what’s going to happen. I am not going there. I will go at it with facts and will negotiate at the bargaining table not in public.”
Unions have been involved in the disability management initiative so far and have acknowledged that the existing system hasn’t worked like it should. Critics argue the system can actually get in the way of workers getting back to work faster and healthier, especially for mental health illnesses.
PSAC has sounded the alarm the loudest over the rising mental health claims, which now account for almost half of all disability claims.
Benson said the high occurrence of illness is only getting worse as the government downsizes leaving fewer workers to handle mounting workloads and reducing sick leave will “only make the situation worse.”
But Andrew Graham, a former federal executive and expert in public spending, said the Conservatives are on the right track to try and reduce “big clunky” liabilities that future generations will have to pay.
“Reforming sick leave is something the federal government should have done 10 years ago — Ontario did it about 15 years ago. They want to go from an entitlement system to a credit system. I think the federal government is scrambling left, right and centre to tighten their balance sheet and decrease liabilities.”
The government has four separate disability plans covering about
352,500 employees. The plan managed by Sun Life Financial is one of the largest in the country and covers 240,400 unionized employees.
Public servants had to pay a 20-per-cent increase in premiums beginning Feb. 1 to cover an unexpected surge in claims.
Treasury Board launched a $5.6-million disability management initiative several years ago to get a handle on the government’s record-high absenteeism rates and soaring disability rates — led by an epidemic of mental health claims.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: kathryn may
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