Meeting Notice
LNHS – Regularization In The Supportive Housing Division
August 16, 2022
To: All MoveUP Members at LNHS in the Supportive Housing Division
As you are all aware, your union signed off a letter of understanding with your employer on June 22, 2022 finalizing the regularization of all temporary staff in the supportive housing division. Your employer was directed in the agreement to provide you all with a copy of the regularization letter, but in case you have not received it, you can find a copy here. Based on your feedback and questions, we could have done a better a job communicating our intention of regularizing the supportive housing division and ensured the impacts were fully understood. We would like to take that opportunity now to correct and clarify.
We have been pursuing regularization for these positions since the expansion of the supportive housing division in January 2021. We were initially told that the Holiday Inn temporary housing site was scheduled to wrap by end of June 2020, with a potential 3 month program extension. It has always been our position that barring a defined end date of a program or site, employees should be hired on a regular basis and any temporary employees need to be regularized after 6 months of continuous employment as per our collective agreement :
“5.04 Temporary:
(a) A temporary employee is one so informed by the Employer at the start of employment. A temporary employee reaching regular status will have rights under this Agreement which are based on length of service for seniority dated from the start of continuous employment.
(b) Temporary employees hired to replace employees on leave of absence under Sections 10.01 and 10.03 shall not attain regular status during the duration of their temporary employment.
(c) The period of temporary employment is not to exceed six (6) month’s but may be extended by mutual agreement between the Union and the Employer.”
As the supportive housing division continued to expand, it became clear that despite most of the funding for these programs were temporary, there was no definitive end date as funding was renewed over and over by the funders. We actively discussed our concerns regarding the precarity of temporary employment during bargaining and ratification of our collective agreement last year. Since then, regularization continued to be a near monthly discussion with the employer. We made significant headway in our discussions when we received notice of the Holiday Inn program’s winddown. We discussed these issues out of concern that upon winddown, continued employment was not guaranteed for employees under temporary classification.
During several meetings over the next few months, we finalized the letter of understanding that regularized all temporary housing site employees with all full time employees immediately enrolled in benefits and a legacy clause for part-time employees to continue to receive payment in lieu even if they met the minimum scheduled hours requirement of the plan provider.
Regularization provides access to benefits and entitlements that you were previously forfeiting in exchange for in lieu payment as a temporary employee, including vacation under Article 9 (6% of Annual Gross Earnings), Statutory Holiday Pay under Article 8 (6%), December Holiday Leave under Article 8 (3%), enhanced sick leave coverage under Article 11 (5.2%, an additional 13 days per year), extended health and dental benefits (13.20%), an annual $500.00 health spending account (1%), STD/LTD coverage (3%). Though not direct compensation, that’s an increase to your overall employment package by nearly 20%. These calculations do not include access to additional leave entitlements under Article 10 or the 3.5% employer match on pension contributions. They also do not include the increased job security you benefit from as regular employees with retained seniority.
We have, and will continue to, advocate for increasing your wages. We negotiated the continuance of pandemic pay protocols well after the expiry of the program in 2021. We negotiated an additional 7.25% wage increase for tenant support workers for the 2021 calendar year, on top of the 2.5% wage increase we negotiated for all other workers at Lu’ma, for a total wage increase of 9.75%. We are currently in active discussion with your employer about additional wage enhancements in response to the high rate of inflation we’re seeing in 2022.
We will be holding an all-day zoom meeting on Wednesday, August 17, for members to drop in when they are available with any questions or concerns you may have. Here are the details :
DATE: August 17, 2022
TIME: 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
PLACE: Zoom (click here to register)
You can also always contact your Union Representative any time to discuss regularization or any other issue regarding your employment or worksite you would like to discuss.
On a final note, we are always looking for more stewards. We have a number of job steward training courses happening from September to February 2023. If you are interested in representing your colleagues in your workplace and learning how to steward, you can reach out to your Vice-President, Christy Slusarenko.
We also ask that you please update your contact information if you haven’t done so already, so we can ensure that you are getting up-to-date information during future discussions regarding wage enhancements. You can update us here.
In solidarity,
Nathan Beausoleil, Union Representative
Christy Slusarenko, Vice-President