Sick Days

On September 1 of each year, Vanier College credits 7 sick leave days to the sick bank of each full time professor. In the case of a part time professor, the number of days credited is reduced in proportion to a FTE (full time equivalent).
During a professor’s first year of service, the College adds an additional credit of 6 sick leave days (This provision does not apply to a professor who is new to Vanier because of relocation in accordance with the job security provisions of our collective agreement.)
Any professor who has accumulated 13 sick days or less in his/her bank on June 30 of any year is permitted to add 7 additional sick days at the start of the next academic year. Thus, the maximum number of accumulated sick days would now be 20. A professor is not allowed to accumulate unused sick days without limit. The maximum number of possible accumulated sick days would thus be 20.
When a professor becomes sick for 5 consecutive days or less, they are required to use days in their sick bank. If there are a sufficient number of days remaining in the sick bank, the professor will experience no loss of salary during this period. If, however, there are fewer days in the bank than the number of days missed (assuming 5 consecutive days or less), there will be a loss of pay for those days that cannot be Acovered@ by sick bank days. For example, if you are off sick for 5 consecutive days and have only 3 days in your bank, you will lose salary for those 2 Amissing@ days.
If your period of absence exceeds 5 consecutive days, you will automatically be covered by salary insurance for the entire period after the first 5 days. All full or part time employees who are sick for an extended period, benefit, firstly, from the short term 2-year salary insurance: 85% of a full salary for the first year and 66 2/3% for the second year. After these two years, you are covered by long term disability insurance.
During a given year you may fall sick more than once. In such circumstances you can dip into your bank for the first five days for each occurrence, assuming you have five or more days in your bank.
There is one anomaly concerning sick banks that few people know about. Most teachers think that each year 7 days are credited to their bank that can be used as the need arises. They think that these sick days once given, can’t be taken back. Not so! In fact, although every professor is given the 7 days up front, at the start of each year, these days have to, in fact, be earned by working. To take an extreme example of what could happen, assume that you miss the first 5 days of class at the start of a new academic year in August, and that you had no remaining days in your sick back. The College will pay your salary for this period from your sick bank, under the assumption that you will return shortly and earn the 5 days that they have already paid you Ain advance@. If it turns out that you have never returned to teaching that year, the interpretation is that you have received 5 days of pay which you haven’t earned, and yes, you guessed it, you will be required to repay those 5 days! While obviously not a common experience, this situation has, in fact, occurred.
In the past, many years ago, teachers were allowed to accumulate sick days indefinitely. Consequently, older teachers who did not use many or any sick days during this period, were able to accumulate 40, 50, 60 or more days. In many such cases, these sick days remain in their bank to this day.
During another short period, also long since past, accumulated sick days were cashable at the end of each year provided, the individual professor requested the cashable days at the end of that year. Once the year had passed, without a request being made, those sick days were added to one’s bank and were no longer cashable. The Collective Agreement has since changed: Sick bank days are NO LONGER CUMULATIVE and are NOT CASHABLE any more. Some teachers, especially those close to retirement, seem to believe that accumulated sick bank days can be cashed in upon retirement or exchanged for an earlier retirement date. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. No matter how or when one’s sick days were accumulated, these days are simply lost, upon retirement.

One reason for this misunderstanding is a very poorly worded clause in our collective agreement. The clause 5-5.22 reads as follows:

All stipulations of the 1995-1998 Collective Agreement concerning the cash-convertibility of the professor’s sick-leave bank shall be maintained and reimbursement shall be made as follows:

in one payment when the professor retires or dies;
in three (3) equal and consecutive annual payments upon the professor’s resignation, dismissal or non-renewal of contract;
by means of a leave based on the balance, in days of the accumulated reserve, at the time of the professor’s retirement. This leave shall not exceed six (6) months.

The value of the cash-convertible days credited to a professor may be used to defray the cost of buying back previous years of service as provided for in the provisions concerning his/her pension plan or to add to salary-insurance benefits according to 5-5.07 c). The days credited to a professor on June 30, 1973 may also be used for other purposes than illness where previous Collective Agreement provided for such use, particularly in case of maternity leave.

As you can see, the clause clearly indicates that accumulated sick days are cashable or could be used to retire early. This, however, is not the case because there is a crucial omission in the text of this clause. It should have begun with the words AFor professors who were in SPEQ. SPEQ, (Societe des Professors d’Economique du Quebec), is a little known school commission. Some of their secondary teachers became CEGEP teachers during the first few years when CEGEPs were just starting up. As teachers of SPEQ, they were entitled to much more generous provisions concerning their sick bank. Upon entering the CEGEP system, these provisions were grand-fathered for these lucky teachers.

This clause has been in all previous collective agreements and will continue to be in all future collective agreements until the very last professor, who at one time taught with SPEQ, has quit, retires or passes away. There are currently only a handful of such teachers in the entire system. If you have worked for SPEQ sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s before entering the CEGEP system, you can contact CARRA, the provincial administrative body responsible for teacher pensions. They will confirm (or not) whether this was the case. If you were, in fact, a member of SPEQ, days accumulated during your time in SPEQ are cashable or could be used to buy an early retirement.