Dear Colleagues,

Many of you may have seen the “See Red Wear Red” buttons being worn by staff in the last few months.

The buttons, and the wearing of red on Thursdays, is a visible showing of support for CUPE 4879’s campaign for changes to be made in the Joint Job Evaluation plan (JJE).

As the campaign highlights, several positions reviewed under the JJE plan over the last two years have been “red-circled”. Red-circling a position means that the duties assigned to the position and the weightings assigned to the various factors that determine the position’s value no longer equal the value of other positions in that pay band.

Evaluation of each support staff position follows three principles: that all jobs should be evaluated using gender-neutral criteria; that an evaluation is by a joint committee made up of support staff and managers; and that there are periodic reviews of jobs to ensure equity among the various jobs is maintained. The JJE plan currently used is based on the National CUPE JE Plan.

Although the JJE plan was based on the National CUPE JE Plan and mutually agreed on, the TRU administration has requested CUPE 4879’s support to change the JJE plan to address red-circling.

Recently TRU, CUPE 4879 and CUPE national and regional representatives met with the express purpose to review the current JJE plan and the weightings that have been assigned to each of the various factors that determines a job’s relative value: skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions.

We are pleased to report that promising steps are being made that will result in a revised JJE plan. Our next meeting with CUPE on the JJE plan is scheduled for May 18 and 19.

TRU is committed to ensuring we have a plan based on pay equity that ensures fairness and accurately reflects the value the parties have placed on the wide array of roles in the CUPE ranks.

Sincerely,

Denis Powers
Associate Vice-President Human Resources and Planning