City workers will still be able to bank their sick days for payout at retirement in a three-year deal up for ratification by members of Toronto's inside workers' union today.
The details of the deal were released to members of CUPE Local 79 this morning, as they queued up to vote in a downtown hotel, potentially ending a five week municipal workers' strike that has paralyzed the city.
A key issue in that strike was an attempt by the city to change the way that workers accrue sick days. The current plan sees workers accumulate 18 sick days a year. Unused days are paid out at retirement to a maximum of six months salary.
The city was anxious to move the 30,000 unionized employees to a short term disability, to slay a potential $250 million liability that the plan was creating.
However, the final deal lets employees who have more than 10 years of service and wish to do so, remain in the banked plan, and continue to accumulate days to retirement, at which point they'll be paid out.
Those who wish to, can have their sick bank bought out at a discount, and move to the new Illness and Injury Plan. They can also have their sick bank frozen to draw on for days that might not be covered in the new plan.
And that plan, according to a Local 79 document handed out to members, is a significant improvement to the plan that was first offered by the city.
There will be no monetary penalties for multiple sick days used in a year, and members will have up to 130 days of absence per year, paid in full or in part.
And after 10 years, all sick days are paid in full to workers.
The pay increases in the three years are also an improvement to the four-year deal made public by Mayor David Miller two weeks ago.
That would see wages increase by 1.75 per cent from Jan. 1, 2009, two per cent effective Jan. 1, 2010, and 2.25 per cent effective Jan. 1, 2011.
Shift bonuses will also increase. Family Day is a new designated holiday, while Remembrance Day remains a holiday (the city had proposed swapping holidays).
And an employee wage protection program which protects wages for 35 months at the higher rate when a worker is redeployed to a lower position, whether by simple redeployment or layoff and recall.
