During the last round of negotiations, the PEITF was finally successful in obtaining a clause in the Agreement which supplements Employment Insurance maternity or parental benefits.

In this article, the application of this clause will be explained. The parties agreed that the employer would provide an allowance equivalent to the difference between the weekly E.I. benefits and 75% of the normal weekly earnings. This allowance is payable for the waiting period of two weeks if served and 15 weeks of maternity or parental leave.

The difficulty in the application of this clause is to define what constitutes normal weekly earnings. To illustrate, let’s use the example of a teacher who earns $52,000. a year. Technically, the normal weekly earnings for that teacher would be $1,000. However, because teachers do not get paid in the summer and their pay includes deferred salary, this calculation is not a true representation of the real weekly earnings. The figure is too low.

Another way to calculate the weekly earnings would be to divide the yearly salary by 196 days to get the daily rate and multiply by 5 to get the weekly rate because teachers only get paid for the days that they actually worked. In our example, the weekly earnings would be 5($52,000. ÷ 196) = $1,326.53. The problem with this approach is that the weekly earnings could fluctuate from week to week. If there was a holiday during the week, the weekly earnings would be 4($52,000. ÷ 196) = $1,061.22. During the Christmas Holidays or the March Break, there would be no weekly earnings. Therefore, this calculation does not truly represent the normal weekly earnings either. The figure is too high.

During discussion with the Negotiating Agency, it was agreed to calculate the normal weekly earnings using a 43 weeks work year.

Therefore, assuming the teacher in our example was eligible for the maximum E.I. benefits, the allowance or top-up would be calculated as follows:

Weekly Earnings: $52,000. ÷ 43 = $1,209.30
75% of Weekly Earnings .75 X $1,209.30 = $906.98

Maximum E.I. Benefits: $413.00
$906.98 - $413.00 = $493.98