At the September meeting of the Consultative Committee on Staff Benefits, the CBC formally rejected our motion meeting to increase our vision care benefit from $240 over two years to $300. It would be a modest increase in a benefit that has not improved since the 1990s. The CMG and the French unions are now considering their next moves, with the filing of a grievance likely.
Pension Board Trustees nominated to new terms
The CMG has nominated Jon Soper to continue on the CBC Board of Trustees for another year. Jon returned to the board a year ago when Bob Fisher retired from the CBC. Jon’s new term expires on March 31, 2016.
The French unions have nominated Isabelle Doyon to another two-year term, with hers ending March 31, 2017. With these nominations, we are returning to the longstanding practice of having the terms of employee trustees expiring at different times so that we have overlapping continuity on the CBC Pension Board of Trustees.
The CCSB was also briefed on progress on improving service levels at the Pension Administration Centre operated for the CBC Plan by Morneau Shepell. Carole Belanger, the director of pension administration, reported Morneau has put more effort into improving the knowledge base at the call centre so that members can have their questions answered more quickly and accurately. Over the summer, the number of complaints has gone down. Staff have caught up with processing pension calculations, but there still is a backlog in researching buyback requests. Belanger said the two employees (and there are just two) who conduct the research on individual files are now working on 2014 requests compared to the previous backlog of 12 months or more.
At the September CCSB we approved approximately $45,000 worth of requests from CBC employees and retirees under the Special Assistance Fund. Details about how to apply to the fund are on the CMG site (http://www.cmg.ca/en/cbcradiocanada/special-assistance-fund/)
Your representatives at the September CCSB:
Michael D’Souza
Annick Forest
Eric Foss
Marc-Philippe Laurin
Michael Robert
Jon Soper
Gabi Durocher (staff),