Strike and Retirement Information
I work full-time/part-time, how will the strike affect my pension?
If you are a Contact Teacher or Long-Term Occasional (LTO) Teacher, for the purposes of your pension, a strike day counts as a work day, as your time away from work remains pensionable.
Your employer will report a loss of salary, but not your absence. This means you will continue to receive credit in proportion to what you would have otherwise worked.
If the strike negatively affects your average best five years, and you supported the strike, ETFO will provide the necessary top-up.
Strike Days – When Deducted
Summary of the strike days to-date and pay deduction schedule:
- January 20, 2020 – deducted from the February 20 pay.
- February 6 and 7, 2020 – will be deducted from the March 5, 2020 pay.
- February 11 and 12, 2020 – likely applied to the March 19, 2020 pay (tentative).
Future strike days
Pay deduction for any future strike days will depend on several factors, such as when the days fall in relation to the pay cycle and/or the time needed to review absence records.
Please note that each pay is processed about eight days ahead of the pay date, so there is always a time lag. Because of these processing timelines there is no set schedule or rule as to when pay will be deducted.
Summer Pay Impact
When any day is taken/processed as “unpaid” there are two impacts:
- An immediate impact on the pay period in which it is first processed.
- A second impact on banked earnings used to pay out during the non-working period (normally the summer period).
Strike days reduce the accumulated banked earnings available for the summer period.
The unpaid day reduces the amount available on the final pay-out of the school year which is normally the second pay in August. The second pay in August becomes reduced, once the total reduction equals the regular gross for the second pay in August, that pay becomes nil, then any additional unpaid days would then reduce the first pay in August, and so on.
The rule of thumb for the reduction in pay for August is 0.13% of the annual salary for each unpaid day.
Example: One strike day for a Teacher at $100,034.00 per annum on the salary grid.
Their gross pay for the second pay in August would be reduced by approximately $130.90, which is 0.13% (or a multiplication factor of .0013) of their salary ($100,034.00).
Their regular bi-weekly pay, when the strike day is initially processed, would be reduced by 1/10 of 1/26 of their annual salary ($100,034.00), or $384.74.
Pay Period Covering Dates
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Four-Over-Five Contributions
Any unpaid days during a Four-Over-Five contribution period require an additional deduction of 20% for the unpaid day.
There are two ways that this 20% deduction can be made up:
- Additional 20% amount to be deducted at some point during the four years of contributions. The limitation here is that Canada Revenue does not permit Four-Over-Five deductions to exceed 33.3% in a given period.
- The contribution period can be extended at the end of the five years for the additional 20%. This is normally what is done when there is a large number of unpaid days during the four years of contributions.
The TDSB will be providing further clarification on this issue, as the total number of strike days remains unknown and there has not been a decision yet on how to go about deducting the addition 20% for the unpaid days.
Contact Information
If you have any addition questions or concerns, please contact:
Roz Geridis
ETT Benefits Coordinator
416-393-9930 x226
rgeridis@ett.on.ca