On February 28, 2013, McGill University signed a Settlement Agreement with MUNACA with respect to the 2001 pay equity exercise. This agreement was reached through a conciliation process with the Pay Equity Commission and covers all McGill employees.
According to the terms of this agreement:
- All complaints with respect to pay equity filed with the Pay Equity Commission for the period ending December 31, 2010 are resolved and closed.
- McGill University must pay retroactive pay equity adjustments to all employees who worked at McGill in a position for which adjustments are required, within a delay of 6 to 12 months of the signature of the agreement.
- McGill University must produce a new pay equity maintenance review for December 31, 2010.
Since the signing of this agreement, McGill Human Resources has been working diligently to trace back all the employees, past and current, who could be entitled to retroactive pay equity adjustments. Since affected employees were identified based on a specific list of positions that were different for the 2001-2005 and the 2005-2010 periods, and due to the fact that the level of adjustment depends on the salary scales in which the employees were during that period, the identification process has been lengthy and complex.
At this time, Human Resources believes that the identification process of affected employees has been completed. We have extracted historical information on all pay checks ever received by these employees since the end of 2001 as well as information on pay equity adjustments that were already paid to some of these employees in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Since retroactive adjustments for affected employees need to be calculated over a period of up to 12 years and that numerous changes have occurred in their career over that period, it is impossible to automate most of the computations. This recalculation process will therefore be work intensive and time consuming.
At this time, it is expected that a few more months of work will be required. The University is confident that it will be able to complete the computation of the retroactive adjustments before the deadline of February 2014. We believe this timeline to be realistic, barring any unforeseen circumstances that had not been identified until now, and are not currently anticipated.
All affected employees will receive an individual communication and the retroactive adjustments will be paid in a single payment. The expected payment date should be around the 15th of February 2014. We will keep you posted on further updates. More information will be communicated to you later in the fall 2013.
Alice Kieran, Director Total Compensation