May 30, 2003

Deal reached on SARS quarantine compensation for OPSEU members in the OPS

OPSEU has signed an agreement with Management Board Secretariat to compensate employees who are quarantined due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

The deal applies to all employees in the OPSEU bargaining unit. This includes classified, unclassified, seasonal, and student workers.

The employer will compensate workers who have been ordered into quarantine by:

· the Commissioner of Public Safety;

· a public health official;

· a physician or a nurse;

· Telehealth Ontario;

· the government of Ontario (i.e., the employer);

· the government of Canada; or

· a municipal council or board of health.

Employees who are off work because they are sick and/or being observed or treated for SARS must use sick time or other credits to cover the period of their absence. Compensation will be paid only to those ordered into quarantine.

People working full-time hours who are quarantined because they may have been exposed to SARS will receive full compensation for all hours they would have worked had they not been quarantined.

Similarly, people working regularly-scheduled part-time hours who are quarantined will be paid for all the hours they would have worked.

People who are irregularly scheduled (on call) will be paid based on the average amount they earned in the 13 weeks before being quarantined. People who have not been employed for 13 weeks will be paid based on the average for the time they have worked.

The agreement is retroactive and covers the first SARS outbreak as well as the current one. If you have used sick-time or other credits to cover a period of quarantine, you are entitled to get those credits back.

By agreement between OPSEU and the employer, the full text of the agreement will be published on Monday, June 2. Look for it on Monday on the OPSEU web site.

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Original authorized for distribution by Leah Casselman, president.

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