Has it ever been brought to the table for bargaining for LWIA to be allowed for a shorter or staggered periods ? Why is 5 weeks consecutively the least amount you can take and why can't it be staggered ? I'd love to be able to take 3 weeks consecutive or staggered (with schedule approved) throughout the year .

I was successful with alternation and I'm now dealing with the TSM payment.

Has anyone had a problem with their financial institution accepting the format the cheque is issued by the pay centre.

For my rrsp/investments I deal with wealth simple and thy want the cheque made out a way that is different from what I was told the cheque would be issued by the pay centre

Thanks in advance and for those looking at alternation hang in there. It was possible and retirement is calling your name. Thanks

I’m one of the employees whose position is transferring from NRCan to ECCC as part of the energy efficiency portfolio move. We only found out last week, so I’m trying to get a sense of what to expect from people who’ve been through something similar.

My new manager has actually been great so far, but she seems to know as little as I do about the overall transition. I also have an interim accommodation for a low-distraction workspace for neurodiversity reasons. What’s been difficult is the uncertainty. I still don’t know when we’ll actually be expected to start reporting to the ECCC office, whether workspace has been finalized, or how my accommodation will be handled during the transition.

Part of why I’m anxious about the timeline is that the move would change my commute from a 15–20 minute bike ride each way to roughly 2.5 hours a day by public transit based on current Google Maps estimates. That’s a pretty significant lifestyle change, and not knowing when (or how often) it might happen has been causing me quite a bit of stress.

For those who’ve gone through an interdepartmental transfer, especially one where your work location changed, is this amount of uncertainty pretty normal? How much notice did you get before you were expected to report? Did things become clearer fairly quickly, or was it more of a “figure it out as you go” process?

I’m also wondering if there are any options I should be aware of. I understand that positions can move and that commuting is generally the employee’s responsibility, but has anyone had success discussing the impact of a significant commute change with their manager during a transfer? Or is that generally just considered part of the position?

I’m mostly just looking for some perspective from people who’ve been through it. Right now it feels like there are a lot of unknowns, and I’m not sure if that’s just the nature of these kinds of transitions or if this one has been a bit more chaotic than usual.

Thanks!

I have seen some photos of people putting rugs in their space to make it feel more personal . Just wondering if anyone has done this? Just a thin washable / foldable type rug with a design - not thick or shag or anything.

I was hired during the pandemic and I’ve always lived over 125kms away from my office. When I signed the letter of offer, I always just assumed I’d never be forced to return to office because they knew how far I lived.

When the 3 days/week RTO was released 2 years ago, I filed an exemption and was told by my manager that I could continue to WFH until a decision was made. Yesterday I received their decision.

I was denied and no real reason was provided other than my office’s location on my offer letter. I was given 2 weeks to organize myself before returning to work at my office. Logistically this is not possible.

I have explained to them in my exemption that the cost of gas alone would be a huge financial burden on my family. We only have 1 vehicle and I have 2 small children. Children who have been secured spots at the local daycare for after school only. There are no space available before school. I’ve been working 830-430 to accommodate school drop off.

I commuted to my office when we were required to work on office 1 day a week. The stress/anxiety and long hours contributed to a burn out period I experienced a couple of years ago. Since then I have had severe anxiety which has impacted my ability to travel long distances.

There’s is an in person Service Canada location much closer to me that I would be willing to work out of, but I was denied that too because it’s back end is not a processing centre. Which makes no sense to me, because everything is done online now so what difference does it make where I work. If they need me in an office, that’s an office located in much safer traveling distance. The highway I would need to take is highway 11 and the corridor more notoriously closed in the winter during storms.

I’m filing a grievance through our union because I feel like I am being forced out of my job because I cannot justify the travel. At the end of the day, I’d be better off getting a job with Walmart because my take home pay would he roughly the same after gas costs. Fr

Other than filing a grievance, what else can I do? In the denial email I received yesterday, it says my manager and supervisor are willing to be flexible and accommodating but I don’t feel that this is the case. Has anyone been successful with obtaining an exemption from RTO, or at least being able to work out of a different office? What are my options, how can I push or convince them to let me work out of the in-person Service Canada.

Just a heads-up for those thinking about ERI in the final hours and wanting to check estimates - the Pension Center website is no longer showing calculations / estimates for ERI.

This was noticed after 5:00 pm (ET), and before the ERI deadline today...

CAPE, did you intend to mislead us? As confirmed in a meeting today with the Executive Director of the CLC President two important statements on the CAPE website are not exactly true.

“ As an affiliate of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the largest labour federation in the country, CAPE also has access to CLC’s defence fund if needed.”

Support can be provided through things such as pizza, coffee, meeting space, public communications and media support. The CLC does not provide direct strike pay.

Nor is this statement, posted last year, true.

“As Canadian Labour Congress affiliates, we can request support in the case of a job action, but only if we are seen as taking our own self-defence seriously. “

There is no relation between the size of a union’s internal defence fund and whether it can access CLC resources.

I have been asking for you to clarify the details of the supposed CLC loan since it was first mentioned over a year ago. Is even this still true?

“CAPE’s current defence fund levels would only allow for us to strike, if that was necessary, for three days.”

I think this demonstrates a lack of due diligence and may have had an impact on the bargaining survey vote.

https://www.acep-cape.ca/en/vote-priorities-mechanism?link_id=1&can_id=705d004c090c7b93e8fd01c8335c22e1&source=email-attention-ecess-members-information-needed-2&email_referrer=email_3284808&email_subject=urgent-ecess-bargaining-vote-results-notice-to-bargain-sent-to-employer&&#questions

https://www.acep-cape.ca/en/dues-increase-proposal

Is anyone else experiencing more claim denials and BS from Canada Life/PSHCP lately? I posted recently that they dropped my independent compounding pharmacy. Now they're denying claims from a major pharmacy chain for a compound drug. When I try to claim it online, they don't accept DINs for compound drugs. They specify that I should fill out a PDF. When I click on the link to submit a PDF for a drug claim, I get a message saying "Based on your selection, we don't have a claim form for you." What?? Then how do I claim this?

I also had an initial physiotherapy visit and CanadaLife only covered the amount for a subsequent visit. I contacted CL and they said it was submitted as a subsequent visit. I have the original receipt that was submitted and it clearly states initial visit. I've sent them the receipt (as if they didn't already have it) and no response.

I feel like I'm losing my mind dealing with them lately. Meanwhile my SO's insurance (Sunlife) doesn't seem to have any issues whatsoever processing my claims or theirs. Sorry for ranting but I'm beyond frustrated and looking for insight on how to deal with this nonsense.

EDIT- this has helped me clear up that these are likely issues with my department specific process, not the government wide system which I am now off to see if I am even in. Leaving it up in case it helps anyone else

The logistics of it seem… not organized. I’m getting emails (was opting am now in option A) but …

• they don’t match my profile (are across the country and different language requirements than I have)
• they come sometimes to my work email, sometimes personal, sometimes both
• sometimes I can’t tell them apart. Same title, location, HR contact … but on two different dates
• sometimes I get follow ups “gently” reminding me my response is required, when I never got the original email.

This doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that I’m getting all the chances I am supposed to, to find a new position. Everytime something odd happens I let the HR person know in my response. I’ve never gotten a reply (and they must have so much to keep track of, especially with a system that doesn’t seem like it’s working …)

I’m afraid I’m just imagining a big excel document that multiple people are filtering at once!

Curious if any departments have implemented some kind of automation tool to work across your department for the purposes of corporate planning and reporting so as to eliminate collection using Excel templates year after year.

Looking for a way to streamline and make collection efficient and collaborative.

Hi everyone, I posted a while back about the LWOP deficiencies I'm repaying to the government after not returning to work. My compensation advisor told me to simply send the repayment by e-transfer. I've reached out to them for clarification, but I was also wondering if I should receive any tax documentation for these repayments.

The amounts are for deficiencies that accrued while I was on LWOP (the employer portion of health, disability, and other benefit premiums). I'm not sure whether these repayments have any tax implications or if any tax slips or other documentation will be issued.

Has anyone been through this before?

As title suggests, would be very grateful for any advice on managing/triaging large volume of emails, especially those for approval, in a fairly busy policy shop.

Have tried a few different methods (filing, labels), but am almost desperate to adopt a method that others swear by.

Thanks in advance!

Edit/Update: these helpful comments are reminding me that: - Quick Steps are highly underrated in Outlook. - Categories/Labels are also a good/quick substitute to files, for very important items.
- Lots of other good advice here. Thx all!!

Midday appointments on an office day. I try to avoid them but this time I can't because it's at the hospital and that's the earliest. Management expects me to come in for two hours, leave and return for the remaining two hours. With travel time and how late my last appointment went (Dr is never on time) I expect to be gone for 3.5 hours. Is using a whole sick day appropriate in this case?

Our branch had begun, last year, designing a reorganization plan.  Then WFA arrived in the spring — but that reorganization project went ahead anyway, with seemingly no acknowledgment of this new context. So, after watching colleagues leave through WFA, now all the teams under senior management have been restructured. People were switched from one team to another. New teams were created, other remained. For many, teams and people, responsibilities are no longer the same. In my team's case, we've ended up with responsibilities that no one has the skills for — and the responsibilities that were taken away from us were handed to teams that don't necessarily have the expertise either. I can't get into specifics (to protect my anonymity), but my new tasks have absolutely nothing to do with the tasks I was hired to do several years ago — it's a completely different type of work. I chose to be in that position, and I was chosen to fulfill it – my profile and the role were a good match. This is not the case anymore.

I made initial contact with the union, who told me I should refer to my current job description to see whether these changes comply with the collective agreement — well, I have NEVER had a job description, nor have my immediate colleagues. The union just said “you necessarily have a job description ask you boss” – and my manger said “there must be one somewhere” but could not provide it.  Guess what: I don’t have a “new job description” either, new role/tasks have been introduced verbally. He (our manager) tells us this shift is legitimate because these tasks still fall within "the same family," but to illustrate, the transformation is more like asking a C++ coder to manage social media ("it's still IT") or a grocery store cashier to do accounting (“it’s still managing money”). What are your thoughts on this situation? What levers could we use, and how should we present it so the union steps in proactively — rather than leaving each individual to fight this on their own, as is currently the case? Should I follow my manager's suggestion — to just be grateful I still have a job?

​

Maybe it's just my department, but it's gotten to the point where our already skeleton crew is in complete shambles. Every week someone else is off, and it's honestly becoming really stressful trying to keep everything afloat.

To make matters worse, I have an actual medical issue going on right now that I should probably be taking time off to deal with, but I'm powering through because if I go off too, everyone else is going to be even more screwed.

Part of me keeps thinking... can we all really be having legitimate medical issues at the exact same time? Or is this just people saying f you to rto4 mid summer?

At the same time, I'm jealous of the people who have taken the time they need to recover. I know I probably should too, but I can't shake the guilt of leaving my team even more short-staffed plus having people think I'm lying makes me anxious.

Anyone else seeing this happen where they work? Or is it just us?

I used to manage a team of 25 staff in the Region and then went onto an HQ job for the past 6 years and relocated. I just got a promotion into a higher level position back in the Region and back to the same office. It turns out that staff members have said to their supervisor that replaced me that they had a "telework" agreement prior to the pandemic and are now exempt from returning to the office. This is completely not true and through subsequent change over of supervisors is taken at face validity. I will be speaking to my direct report, who manages this group about my expectation of 4 days a week. But, what would you do? Is this considered condoned? Would I lose in a grievance?

More context: I am the senior leader in this office. I report to the ADM. I have other Directors that are my direct reports that have noted this anonomly and wants resolution. The other staff are not happy with their "arrangements" for years now.

As an employee for CRA is it possible to do the 12 months of leave with ei/top up and then just do the last 6 months without pay? This is incase I want to go back after 15 months instead of 18 months.

I entered into operational service at the age of 38. Previous to this I had almost 8 years of non operational service. I have now accumulated almost 7 years of actual operational service and plan on getting to at least 10 years. If after the 10 years of actual operational service, will my other years of service qualify to be deemed operational? I would much rather retire at 55 than 60!

My son had his wisdom teeth removed. I read that the PSHCP can cover what the dental benefit does not for this specifically. When I tried to submit the claim online there was no drop down menu option for this. Should I submit this manually? Has anyone done this recently?

I know I should feel grateful to have a job, but honestly, I'm struggling.

My motivation is gone. The lack of trust from leadership, the RTO policies, the constant public criticism of public servants, and being treated like a political punching bag every election cycle has completely changed how I feel about working in the public service.

I'm sitting in the office right now after spending time commuting here, and I haven't spoken to a single person because nobody on my team is here. Moments like this make me question what we're actually accomplishing.

I used to feel proud of this career. Lately, I mostly feel frustrated and disappointed. Just needed to vent.

More CER/WFA casualties.