Canadian Labour Reporter

employees' pay equally among 26 pay periods over the course of the year. Holiday pay and other ele- ments were included in each em- ployee's total pay, which was then divided up. The pay system was meant to normalize and flatten vacation scheduling by standardizing the time off and making hours of work and financial demands consistent over the course of the year. In ad- dition to establishing 26 equal pay periods, the system created pre- set schedules for shift employees consisting of nine tours followed by 22 consecutive days off, four times per year. Each tour consist- ed of four working days — two day shifts and two night shifts — fol- lowed by four days off. The formula for calculating each employee's salary to be divid- ed up into 26 equal parts involved actual hours worked, vacation en- titlement, floater hours, Sunday time and statutory holiday pay dif- ferential based on a set number of statutory holidays in the collective agreement. The 26 pay periods ran on an annual basis from May to April. New statutory holiday In 2013, the B.C. provincial gov- ernment introduced a new statu- tory holiday during the stretch between Christmas and Easter — Family Day — to be recognized on the second Monday in February. The new holiday wasn't imme- diately negotiated into Catalyst's collective agreement as a recog- nized holiday but Catalyst decid- ed to voluntarily recognize it that year and did so again in 2014. As a result, holiday pay for the new Family Day was added to each employee's total pay and divided into 26 pay periods. The company told Unifor that under the existing collective agreement, it only had to recognize the holidays outlined in the agreement and it had no ob- ligation to recognize Family Day, so there was no guarantee it would continue to do so. It added that a decision on the holiday for 2015 would be made at a later date. On Jan. 19, 2015, Catalyst noti- fied Unifor it would no longer be recognizing Family Day, so the day would be a normal working day. The holiday would have to be negotiated into a new collective agreement when the time came to do so. However, it was too late to remove Family Day from the annualized pay system for 2015 because the Catalyst payroll de- partment had decided to include the holiday as part of the statutory holiday pay for 2015 back in April 2014 when preparing the system for the 2014-15 pay cycle. As a result, Family Day statu- tory holiday pay was included in the equalized payments to shift employees as far back as May 2014 while the company was able to change the codes for day shift employees scheduled to work on Family Day 2015 from holiday hours worked to straight hours worked. The company sought to recover the overpayment to affected em- ployees but Unifor objected, ar- guing Catalyst was not entitled to deduct money from payments it had already made to employees. While the union agreed employ- ees who didn't receive holiday pay for Family Day 2015 weren't enti- tled to it, it grieved the company's attempts to recover the overpay- ment to other employees. Settlement agreement reached Catalyst and Unifor were un- able to resolve matters during the grievance procedure, so they took things to the B.C. Collective Agreement Arbitration Board for mediation. Arbitrator Dalton Larson con- ducted the mediation process, during which the company and the union were able to reach a set- tlement agreement to the satisfac- tion of both parties. Catalyst agreed to stop its at- tempts at recovering the overpay- ment, allowing employees who were paid statutory holiday pay for Family Day 2015 to keep the extra money, while Unifor accept- ed that the rest of the employees were not entitled to holiday pay for that day. "Not only were the parties able to reach a consensus on the na- ture of the dispute and agree on a comprehensive statement of facts that led to it, they were able also to reach agreement on the terms by which it should be settled," said Larson. He noted he was issuing a con- sent award to record the agree- ment rather than an enforcement award. 7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER NEWS < Unauthorized pg. 1 Catalyst Paper prevented from recovering overpayments Photo: Semen Lixodeev (Shutterstock) B.C's government introduced a new statutory holiday — Family Day — in 2013, but the day wasn't immediately negotiated into Catalyst and Unifor's collective agreement as a recognized holiday. Unifor argued the employer was not entitled to deduct money from payments it had already made to workers.

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