Public Holidays

Back in February was Family Day.... the newest public holiday in Ontario. Initially, I had been banking on getting double time and a half for the day since when asked my supervisor said that they don't give lieu days for any of the holidays. So imagine my surprise when I find out that they are going with a lieu day this time. It does cost them less because it's a day off with pay, rather then 1.5x your wages plus the pay for working the day.

So I requested that my lieu day be a Saturday in March. I was hoping that this would guarantee I wouldn't be working on the anniversary of when I was fired from Minacs. My days off had consistently been Thursday and Friday but it was always possible that the scheduler might do something other then copy & paste for the schedule. Plus it was the only way I was ever going to get a Saturday off. Then Bill got a note saying that they were going to assign the day off. What he said is that he had already submitted the request so we would just be waiting to see if it was given. Now when the schedule was released it wasn't on there. That really didn't mean anything since as I mentioned whoever does the scheduling just copied and pasted the schedule from the week before. So I asked Bill and the next thing I know I have the day off. So at this point I was assuming that it was being used as the lieu day.

Have I mentioned the guy that does scheduling really likes to copy and paste? The following week my schedule still had 3 days off. Now the week before had been the Easter weekend so I knew I had an extra day's pay there. I knew that getting an extra day off.... when my paycheque would remain th same size... was not an opportunity that presented itself very often. So I decided to capitalize on it. Then the following week I still had three days off... I wasn't going to take it... and then with the contract loss I got the time off any ways.

Get paid and low and behold it wasn't on there. Now when I first found out I was at home and not about to go all the way to work to get my pay stub and confirm what I already suspected. First day of training I went down to HR and was reminded that to work in HR (at least here any ways) people skills are not a job requirement. They couldn't find the pay stub and the person that would have it had called in sick. So the next day I was back... and got my pay stub. Sure enough I wasn't paid. When I tried to ask I got cut off and told to talk to Bill. When I went to ask Bill he said that he had told me I might not get paid for the day and that it was a personal request day. Talk about BS and covering his own ass. He never said that. He told me that they were assigning the days off but also said that it might go through since he put the request in before he got that memo. Then he said to let him know if they hadn't paid it out within the 3 months.

At that point I gave up. Since they hadn't paid it out I figured I might as well just enjoy the fact now they owed me yet another day off. If they pay it out it has to be with the shit premium. Otherwise they have to give me the day off with pay. No complaints there. Now you would think that since Bill is a supervisor (and was my supervisor) he would be looking into what they are going to do since it has to be given to me by May 17. That's coming up pretty quickly. Otherwise, it's a violation of the employment standards act. Having said that, it's not like the Ministry of Labour is all that speedy. Took 8 months for them to open my last investigation with my former employer. The real issue is that we will still be training until then. Granted we will be on the floor before the date passes. T-Mobile has a policy that if you miss more then 16 hours then you're out. I'm not sure if that is just in class hours... and I don't think that I will be missing that but if you take away the 8 hours for the lieu day then I really can't miss any time.

It's not like I haven't given them outs. I booked the day off a month after the holiday. Even gave them the chance to correct that and just pay for the day (not the premium wages) knowing that we were going to be in training until their time runs out. Even asked them about paying out the lieu day as one of the days I missed instead of vacation time. That was more for their benefit then mine. I was getting paid for the day regardless... but thought it would be easier for them.

Now I am half tempted to just do nothing... After all I can pretty much guarantee that the 3 months will come and go and I won't get the day off. But at the same time I just want what I am entitled to and don't want to fight for it. I am concerned that if I don't hound them for it I'll get lost in the shuffle and lose the day completely. After all I was switched to a new contract in there.... Or if I leave I'll end up fighting them for the pay. When Heather comes back from vacation I am going to ask her to look into it. If there is still no answer then I am just going to leave it.... until the 3 months has gone by. Then I'll be asking what happened to my day off. See what they say then.