The language: Enhance the return to work of individuals on STSP and LTIP with a mandatory rehabilitation plan.
Under the employer’s proposals, they have tabled language that has one purpose and one purpose only: To get employees who are on Short Term Sickness Plan (STSP) or Long Term Income Protection (LTIP) back to work as quickly as possible…whether you are able to or not.
The employer wants to absolve themselves from your needs by using management-directed Comprehensive Vocational Assessments (CVA) or have their insurance company recommend Return to Work and Workplace Accommodation plan.
To enforce this, the employer has also proposed that if you are unable to follow the recommendations of the CVA or insurance company’s rehabilitation plan, you will be cut off of your benefits.
All the employer cares about is costs, so it is in their best interest to get you off the benefits they provide. They won’t be interested in designing a Return to Work or Accommodation plan that will actually work for you. In fact, this plan could even be contrary to what your doctor has ordered. There would be no ability to protect your personal medical information, since everything would go to the government case coordinator or the insurance company. To make matters worse, the insurance company can recommend a Workplace Accommodation Plan for work outside of the OPS.
This draconian measure reinforces this government’s overall plan to harm any employee who is sick, injured or, through no fault of their own, unable to come to work. Long-fought-for protections in the collective agreement are being stripped away by an employer who simply doesn’t care about the well-being of those who work for them.
The employer is trying to put into the collective agreement what they have put in their new disability management policies. The union has already filed a policy grievance on this. We made it very clear to the employer that we don’t agree with their new policies and we certainly can’t agree to entrench this malicious policy into our collective agreement.
As employees, we all hope we never have to access these benefits. For those who may, or already do, this proposal will be an additional nightmare to have to live with.
Please continue to support your Bargaining Teams.
Authorized by:
Roxanne Barnes, Chair, Central/Unified Team
Tom O’Neill, Chair, Corrections Team
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President