We have received a few questions about payment for the winter semester and feel that an update to all members would be useful. There is not a pay date on January 21, 2022 nor was there on January 14th. The final pay for the (Fall term) was December 31st, and the first payment for the Winter Term is January 28, 2022. There is a reason for this.
This year the winter semester started on January 10, the latest calendar date that the semester can begin. The first biweekly pay period (for most permanent employees) fell on January 14, the latest calendar day in which a first pay period of the year could run. This occurs infrequently, but is possible depending how the semester and calendar lineup.
Wages paid to you are one week in arrears. This means that the January 14 pay covered the last week in December and the first week in January – a time when Sessionals were not employed (and thus were eligible to collect Employment Insurance). For those of you working this winter, your contract started on the first day of the semester (January 10), instead of starting the contract on January 1. This more accurately reflects the period you work, and allows those of EI to collect for a longer period.
You should be/should have been able to collect EI from January 1st to January 9th if you have enough insurable hours. For information on EI, click here. If you did not apply for EI over the holidays but met the criteria, it is not too late to apply. More information can be found at the link above.
If you have already served a withholding period in the past 52 weeks, you would have been able to collect EI as of January 1st. If you have not served a withholding period, you could have served one week over the holidays and should be able to collect EI for a day or two. However, you will have served the one-week waiting period, which means you won’t need to do so again in the spring.
If you are not working this winter semester, we would encourage you to apply to EI. Service Canada will determine your eligibility. In certain instances, it is possible to both work and collect EI (with some clawbacks) if the amount of work have in the winter has dropped substantially from the work you had during the fall term. More information is available here.
If you were collecting EI over the holidays and are teaching this semester, you should be reporting to Service Canada that you are back working. If McMaster is your sole employer, you should report your first day worked/first day for which paid as January 10, 2022.
The employer has already uploaded your ROE automatically to Service Canada for the past semester.
The final pay date for this semester is April 22, which covers the period from April 3rd to April 16th. April 16th is the date that you can report to EI as your last day of work/last day for which paid if you are applying to EI over the spring. The full pay schedule can be found here: https://cupe3906.org/files/2021/09/Pay-Dates-for-CUPE-TA-and-Sessional-Faculty_2021_22.pdf
If you have any questions, please contact brad@cupe3906.org or Carolyn (chiefsteward_sessionals@cupe39306.org)