Know your contract: How maternity and parental leave works
AUFA’s bargaining team received a request for changes to the collective agreement around maternity and parental leave benefits (Article 16). Assessing this request required the bargaining team to sort through how these benefits work.
The bargaining team thought it might be useful to share with the membership how maternity and parental leave benefits work. The illustrative diagrams at the bottom of this blog may be easier to understand than the text.
Background
There are three intersecting sources of maternity- and parental-leave benefits:
Provincial Employment Standards legislation sets minimums for job-protected leaves.
Federal Employment Insurance (EI) normally provides financial benefits during these leaves.
The collective agreements sets out additional financial and non-financial benefits during these leaves.
Job-Protected Leaves (Provincial Legislation)
After 90 days of employment, AUFA members are eligible for job-protected maternity and parental leaves that include:
16 weeks of job-protected maternity leave is available to an AUFA member who is pregnant or has given birth.
62 weeks of job-protected parental leave is available to any AUFA member who becomes a parent.
Employees who have given birth can take both maternity and parental leave (16 + 62 weeks). Parents can share parental leave. Both are entitled to full 62 weeks of job-protected leave, unless they work for the same employer (in which case, the leave is shared).
Maternity leave is also available if a pregnancy is lost within 16 weeks of the estimated due date. Members who experience pregnancy loss may also be eligible to access sick leave benefits.
EI Benefits
Most AUFA members on maternity and parental leave are eligible to receive EI payments. EI wage-replacement is normally 55% of your earnings up to a maximum of $668 per week.
Parental-leave EI benefits normally last 12 months (standard option). Parental-leave EI benefits can be spread over 18 months. If you opt for this extended option, wage-replacement benefits amount to 33% of earnings up to a maximum of $401 per week.
Parents can share EI parental-leave benefits. If parents share parental leave, they are eligible for an additional “Parental Sharing Benefit” that is an extra 5 weeks (standard option) or 8 weeks (extended option) to encourage non-birthing parents to take leave.
AU Top-Up
AU provides a six-week wage “top-up” to EI maternity benefits. The top-up amount combined with EI will equal your normal earnings.
AU Benefits and Premiums
Your health benefits continue during maternity and parental leave. AU pays its portion of benefits costs; you must pay your portion. If you are eligible for the maternity leave top-up, AU deducts your portion from the top-up. If you are not eligible for the top-up (e.g., you only receive parental leave), you must remit your portion.
AU Pension and Premiums
Our pension plan is jointly funded (both AU and the employee make monthly payments). Maternity and parental leave can be considered pensionable service.
If you receive the maternity-leave top-up, monthly pension payments continue as per normal for the duration of the top-up. For the remainder of any maternity leave and for the duration of any parental leave, no pension deductions are made.
At the end of your leave(s), you can buy back this period of pensionable service. To do so, you must pay both the employer and employee premiums and UAPP requires this paid as a lump sum or RRSP transfer.
Three Months at Full Pay
The collective agreement entitles members to three months of full pay during parental leave. If two AU staff members split parental leave, only one receives the three months at full salary benefit.
This period of full pay can be taken at the beginning or the end of the parental leave. AU recommends taking this leave at the end of the parental leave because this is administratively simpler (if you take it after maternity leave ends, you have to stop your EI for three months and then restart it when your parental leave starts).
The diagrams below present simple examples of how the leaves and benefits work. These diagrams assume a single AUFA member taking their maximum entitled leaves.
Maternity plus Parental example
2024 Maternity Plus Parental Leave
Parental only example
2024 Parental Leave
On behalf of the bargaining team,
Bob Barnetson, President