After the employer denied several grievances re: casual service on behalf of members covered under the MGEU HCSS collective agreements in Prairie Mountain Health and Interlake Eastern RHA, the MGEU referred them to Arbitration -- and won!

"For some time now, we've been fighting hard to have casual service recognized for benefit entitlements, including vacation and pre-retirement leave," said MGEU President Kyle Ross. "During the last round of central table HCSS negotiations, the union told the employer that casual service ought to be recognized for benefit purposes and after we ratified our collective agreement, we filed numerous grievances on this issue."

More than 200 members came forward and the union filed individual grievances on their behalf, along with a policy grievance, all of which the employers denied.

"In the end, we had to refer these grievances to Arbitration and a hearing was held in early November 2021," Ross said, "Recently, the Arbitrator ruled in our favour and we're happy to have settled this matter in a way that goes some distance in recognizing all service with the employer, including casual service."
 
The Order provides the following for all employees as of the date of the Order, November 30, 2021:

For Vacation
  • All employees shall have their vacation entitlement re-calculated retroactively to October 1, 2013, to take into account casual service at any time during their continuous employment.
  • If employees would now have qualified for additional weeks of vacation in the years 2013 and following, the additional weeks will be paid out to them.
For Retirement Bonus
  • Continuous employment shall include any time as a casual, and “total paid hours”, includes paid hours as a casual.
  • For employees with casual service prior to April 1, 2012, the Employer shall credit each employee with 1000 paid hours for each year, or prorated amount of 1000 for partial years of casual service;
  • For employees with casual service after April 1, 2012, the Employer shall credit each employee with all paid hours actually worked.
The employer will be posting a list showing each employee’s date of hire, including their date of hire as a casual, if applicable.
Employees will have 30 days to review and challenge the accuracy of their hire date which will be used to calculate entitlements. The employer has committed to making payments to employees within a further 90 days after that.
If members have any questions, they're encouraged to contact the MGEU Resource Centre.