With CBC’s budget year coming to an end on March 31, you may be under some pressure from the Corporation to use up your annual leave left over from previous years. However, you have a say in whether you take the accumulated time in leave or get a payout from CBC, no matter how many days you are owed.
Unlike any unused time-off-in-lieu you may have earned, which is automatically paid out at the end of the fiscal year, CBC management cannot unilaterally pay out your earned annual leave.
Note that the leave you take after April 1 was actually earned in the fiscal year of April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. That means that any accumulated annual leave that you have right now was earned in the fiscal year 2005-6 or before. Nothing in the collective agreement limits how much annual leave you can carry over from one year to the next; however, an employee must get agreement from management to carry over annual leave.
If you prefer to take your accumulated time as leave, you must work with your manager to schedule it.
Here are a couple of things to keep in mind (see Article 68 of the collective agreement for further information):
– your current annual leave (earned in 2006-7) should be scheduled according to three principles: your preference, your seniority and operational requirements.
– you cannot be forced to take your current annual leave outside the period between May 15 and October 31 of this year.
– if you have outstanding annual leave from a previous year, management cannot unilaterally decide when and how you use it. According to our collective agreement, a manager must “meet with the employee to discuss the assignment or scheduling of accrued annual leave. Every effort will be made to schedule such leave in a manner that is satisfactory to both parties.” However, the Corporation does have the ultimate right to schedule accumulated leave if you don’t reach an agreement with your manager over timing.
And a final note: the CBC-CMG collective agreement, and not CBC corporate policies, governs annual leave rights for CMG members.
For more information, get in touch with Bruce May (bruce@cmg.ca) or Glenn Gray (glenn@cmg.ca) at 416-591-5333 or 1-800-465-4149.