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Monday, February 15, 2010

Whew...

As I've mentioned, I'm a term employee at the moment. When we started looking into really going through with IVF, I checked out the gov. policies for leave & term employees... So, for the last oh lord, 6-8 months maybe, I've been under the assumption that as a term employee, I would be severely limited in the amount of leave I could take, before my seniority at work was reset. Basically, I thought that I could take no more than 60 calendar days of leave (yes, 8.5 weeks) for mat leave.

I was chatting with a good friend last night (who just happens to be a lawyer), and mentioned this whole 60-day thing. She was flabbergasted -"I'm pretty sure that's illegal!"... so I found the relevant parts of our contract & the term employee guidelines, and I'm quite happy to say I was wrong! *MUCH REJOICING*  Looks like I'll be entitled to the same leave as everyone else, and taking more than 60 days will not reset my 'counter' to zero*. PHEW. The plan is still for J & I to roughly split the leave, but it's just so much better that I won't have to go back so soon... y'know, if this whole thing works in the first place :P

*Another part of our contract states that if we have been employed cumulatively for 3 years, term employees automatically become permanent. I'm at 15.5 months right now, and if things progress as hoped, I will have about 2.25 years in when the baby(s) arrive. I didn't want to lose 2+ years of time, but didn't want to take only 60 days of mat leave either. Now? best of both worlds... :)

3 comments:

  1. Oh wow, that is GREAT news. :D I was thinking when you told me that it just didn't sound "right" at all! You must be sooo relieved!

    And now, to start planning Mat Leave coffee dates w/ babes and you, AS WELL as offloading all of my baby and mat clothes en masse into your house.. (rubs hands together, concocting fiendish plan..)

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  2. Great news!!! Logic told me that if you had been employed (regardless of status) and paying EI then you should be entitled to mat leave like everyone else. Then again I don't work in the government and lord knows there's enough red tape to circle the globe a few million times! Glad it all got ironed out!!!

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  3. Hooray for positivity! From here on, I hope things just continue to get easier for you. :oD

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