Were you vaccinated during work hours between April 1 and April 21?
AUPE members at Alberta Health Services who were vaccinated between April 1 and April 21 are now eligible for the employer to return any banked time used for vaccine appointments. This decision is the result of a grievance that AUPE filed against the employer on April 20.
On April 1, the Memorandum of Agreement expired—and with it, provisions for paid time to get vaccinated. The employer still provided one hour of paid time for vaccine appointments, but any time longer than an hour had to be taken from workers’ vacation time, unpaid leave of absence, or sick time.
On April 21, new legislation came into effect that allowed for workers to take up to three hours off for vaccination appointments. Your bargaining committee filed a grievance, so that workers caught between those dates would not have to use their banked leave for essential vaccine appointments.
If you took time off work between April 1 and April 21 for a vaccine appointment and had to use your banked leave for the appointment, submit a claim to your manager before June 24 to have those hours returned to you. From there, your manager should re-code any hours that you used beyond the one-hour maximum as “regular” time and return any banked time that you spent on your appointment, up to a total of three hours.
The employer has assured us that they will not demand proof of vaccination or any other similar documents—you will only need to specify which hours you booked for the appointment and what time off your manager will need to re-code.
This decision applies to AUPE members in both AHS nursing care (NC) and general support services (GSS), but does not apply to workers who took vaccine appointments outside of work hours, or to workers denied time to attend vaccine appointments in the first place.
If you have any questions about the process, contact your Membership Services Officer by calling 1-800-232-7284.
Small wins like these—and the bigger wins we’re fighting for—are only possible when our worksites are united. To build that power and keep you up to date, we need effective ways of communicating with you. Create your own personal MyAUPE account on www.aupe.org to receive all AHS bargaining news and important union updates. You’ll also need a MyAUPE account to participate in this year’s annual general meetings and elections, so sign up to get more involved in our union.
We may have won this round, but the employer is still looking to eliminate jobs and cut pay and benefits. We’re need to prepare for a serious fight in the near future. When we fight together, we can win.
In the meantime, submit your claims for your vaccination appointments—and remind your co-workers that they have the right to do so as well.