Careleaving Leave and Benefits: what you need to know 🚩

Your update on the latest Collective Agreement negotiations
April 11, 2019

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Dear CUPEU member,

The university continues to be responsive and respectful as negotiations rolls along. We remain hopeful that this is a positive indicator pointing to the projected negotiations' June 2019 end date (before President Shepard's term as president ends).

In the meantime, as mentioned in the last PROgress Report, one of the main points we're covering is caregiving. This of particular interest since the government made news in Sept. 2018 establishing new caregiver benefits based on the 2017 Budget.

Now here's something to chew on: do you know anyone in your unit who has (had) to take care of a loved one in critical condition? If so, the info below will be of interest...read on!

CUPEU and Caregiving:
Working to ease a hardship better

In light of the Canadian government's Caregiving Benefits and Leaves, the negotiation team is working to get supplementary allowance for caregiving leave commensurate to what is outlined in the CA's Parental Leave: a top-up amounting to 93% of the member's weekly salary.

Here's a very basic breakdown

Family caregiver benefit for children (for a critically ill or injured person under 18)	up to 35 weeks
Family caregiver benefit for adults (for a critically ill or injured person 18 or over)	up to 15 weeks
Compassionate care benefits (for a person of any age who requires end-of-life-care)	up to 26 weeks

If you meet the eligibility requirements, the basic rate used to calculate EI benefits is 55% of average insurable weekly earnings, up to a maximum amount. In 2019, the maximum amount is $562 a week.

Find more info here: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/caregiving.html

...and a comparison
based on a CUPEU Grade 12, Level 10 position

Weekly salary	$1,497.50
Gov't subsidy (EI)	$562.00
Gov't subsidy (EI) + proposed top-up	$1,392.75

Parental Leave: A CUPEU First and not Its Last

16 years ago, CUPEU set an important precedent at CU by negotiating Parental Leave. We became the first union to have in it in a Collective Agreement. While CU credits itself for developing this benefit and positions our union merely as a supporter, CUPEU did the most of the legwork thanks to the hard work of Adrian Volpana (our former CSN representative), Charlie Brown, Geoff Selig and Eugenia Xenos (former CUPEU execs and negotiation team) by hammering out and fighting for the actual text to make this benefit part of our reality and subsequently, a majority of CU support staff...now you know!

We hope to apply the same importance to Caregiving Leave with a sound benefit for you at what can be an emotionally, physically and financially stressful time.

Here's some related articles:

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch and stay tuned for the next PROgress Report on Pension Adjustment!

CUPEU's new interim CSN representative

We look forward to having Daniel Carrier as our interim CSN representative as we continue negotiations with the university. His portfolio includes being in the bargaining teams of MCLIU (McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union) and SPTP-SAQ (Syndicat du personnel technique et professionel SAQ). He will be taking over from our interim CSN representative Lucie Tessier (who replaced our original CSN representative Luc Desjardins who is on sick leave) as she goes on maternity leave.

Mystery solved!
A very special thanks to Shelagh Peden (UCS), Alfred Tow (Enrolment Services) and David Gobby (former CUPEU President) for getting to the bottom of who's who in this image, which is of the Inter-Union Council in 1996 printed in Concordia's Thursday Report (click the link for the caption...it's a little too long to type!).

cupeu.org

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