ARCHIVED CD 2009-007

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• Information Notice to Employees

April 22, 2009 (Revised May 14, 2009)

SUBJECT: Lump Sum Payment -- Program and Administrative Services (PA) and the Education and Library Science (EB) Groups

1. PURPOSE

1.1 The purpose of this directive is to provide information regarding a lump sum amount payable to employees in the Program and Administrative Services (PA) and the Education and Library Science (EB) groups, under the memorandums of settlement (MOS) signed on November 23, 2008.

1.2 A notice of information to employees concerning the above subject has been included with this Compensation Directive.

2. BACKGROUND

2.1 Under the terms of each settlement, a lump sum amount of $4,000 is payable to all eligible employees who were members of the PA or EB bargaining units on December 15, 2008, excluding employees who were acting outside the bargaining unit for a duration of four months or more on December 15, 2008.

2.2 The payments are being issued as settlement for the withdrawal of the pay equity complaints filed before the Canadian Human Rights Commission for the PA and EB groups.

3. POLICY

| 3.1 The lump sum amount is payable to active and temporarily struck off strength (T-SOS) employees, who were members of the PA or EB bargaining unit on December 15, 2008. This includes indeterminate employees, seasonal employees and term employees appointed for a period equal to or greater than three months. Excluded employees are also entitled to receive the payment.

Unrepresented employees, term employees of less than three months, casual employees, and employees working for a separate agency are not entitled to receive the payment.

3.2 The lump sum is subject to the following deductions:

• federal/provincial income tax
• employment insurance (EI)
• Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or Quebec Pension Plan (QPP)
• Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP)
• Public Service pension plan

3.3 This payment is not considered part of salary for pay purposes. As a result, entitlements related to pay situations (such as promotions or acting pay) will not be recalculated. This payment is not to be used in calculating the 4% gratuity or other entitlements such as premium pay in lieu of statutory holidays. This entitlement is not subject to the 10 working days per month eligibility rule.

The payment is not subject to the Disability Insurance (DI) Plan, the Long-term Disability Insurance (LTD) Plan, the Supplementary Death Benefit (SDB) Plan and the Public Service Management Insurance Plan (PSMIP) deductions.

To accommodate the payment of the lump sum, the profile of entitlement code 087 has been modified to change the indicators for the 4% gratuity, SDB and DI to "2". The changes were implemented in the Regional Pay System (RPS) on March 13, 2009.

3.4 The lump sum is payable within 150 days of the date of signing of the collective agreements for the PA and EB groups, which were signed on January 29, 2009. Consequently, employees shall receive the lump sum payment by June 28, 2009.

3.5. Acting Pay

• An employee of the PA or EB bargaining unit who on December 15, 2008, occupied an acting position outside the PA or EB bargaining unit of less than four months duration is entitled to this payment.
• An employee of the PA or EB bargaining unit who on December 15, 2008, occupied an acting position outside the PA or EB bargaining unit of four months duration or more, is not eligible for this payment.
• Employees from other bargaining units who on December 15, 2008, were acting in a PA or EB position for four months or more are entitled to the lump sum payment.
• Employees from other bargaining units who on December 15, 2008, were acting in a PA or EB position for less than four months are not entitled to the lump sum payment.

3.6. Part-time

Eligible part-time employees will receive the full amount of the lump sum payment (not prorated).

3.7. Term employees

Term employees appointed for a period equal to or greater than three months are entitled to receive the payment, provided they meet the eligibility criteria.

3.8. Salary protection

The lump sum is payable to employees in a salary protection situation provided they meet the eligibility criteria.

3.9. Dual employment

Employees occupying two positions within these bargaining units and on leave without pay (LWOP) from one of the positions shall receive the payment once.

3.10. Dual remuneration

Employees working in two positions within either bargaining unit and receiving dual remuneration shall receive the payment once.

4. PROCEDURES/INSTRUCTIONS

4.1 Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) will automatically process the lump sum payments (entitlement code 087) on April 28, 2009, for all applicable pay frequencies (7A, 7B and 7C). The payments will be processed using the information from the Master Employee Record (MER) as of December 12, 2008, (no updates were processed on December 15, 2008) and the salary/service history (SSH) as of December 15, 2008.

The payments will be processed using a transaction effective date of December 15, 2008, and the cheques will be dated May 7, 2009. The cheques will be issued based on the employee's current or most recent work location.

Compensation advisors are responsible to cancel the cheques for employees who are not entitled to the lump sum payment.

4.1.1 SOS and T-SOS

It should be noted that an account can be T-SOS in a particular department or Pay Office, and taken on strength (TOS) within another department or Pay Office before the previous account is finalized. Therefore, compensation advisors should exercise caution when evaluating the eligibility for T-SOS accounts.

4.1.2 PRL , LIA and LWOP

Automated payments will be issued for eligible employees on pre-retirement transition leave (PRL), leave with income averaging (LIA), and/or for those employees that are working a portion of the work week and are on leave without pay (LWOP) for the remainder of the week.

4.2 Compensation advisors are responsible to manually process the outstanding payments for eligible employees who are not part of the automated process, including the following situations:

• Outstanding transactions for eligible employees processed after the December 12, 2008, supplementary pay update.
• Employees of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) under the Program Administration Group (Bargaining Unit Designator (BUD) 308).
• Employees in dual employment/dual remuneration situations (a "No Payment" report will be produced.)
• Employees working on an "as required" basis (type M) for all bargaining status codes, except 67, 69 and 79 (non-employee status). Departments will be provided with a report.
• Seasonal employees. Departments will be provided with a report.

4.2.1 Manual transactions are to be input using the transaction effective date of December 15, 2008, in the "DD MM YY I" format where "I" represents the AM or PM indicator (1 = AM and 2 = PM).

4.2.2 Refer to sections 4-4-18-3-1 and 14-6-1 of the Personnel-Pay Input Manual (PPIM) for pay input requirements.

4.3 Please note that all payments will be issued by cheque, whether produced by the bulk processing program or manually by the compensation advisor.

4.4. Tax waivers

• In order for the tax waivers to be applied to the automated processing, compensation advisors are required to input the transactions between 2 p.m., April 27, 2009, and the cut-off time of 2 p.m. April 28, 2009, Ottawa time.
• Since the time frame for input will be short, compensation advisors are encouraged to save the transactions ahead of time. Tax Waivers will be reported using a PAC 18C (approved input method), or an ENC screen (on-line method), with entitlement code 395 for Federal tax waiver amount and code 396 for Québec tax waiver amount.
• For batch clients, a separate bulk input file is required containing only the transactions for the tax waivers.

  General information concerning tax waivers can be found at the following Web address: COMPENSATION DIRECTIVE.

5. PAY OFFICE RESPONSIBILITIES

5.1 There are no new responsibilities to be assigned to the pay offices as a result of this payment. Current pay office procedures remain in effect.

6. INQUIRIES

6.1 Any inquiries on the information contained in this document should be addressed to your PWGSC Compensation Services Office.

Original Signed by
B. Fortin

Brigitte Fortin
Director General
Compensation Sector
Accounting, Banking and Compensation

Reference(s): CJA 3060-1 and ENT 087