Employee Needn’t Use Up Contract Personal Days to Take Paid CLC Leave

An employee with enough service to qualify for 3 days of personal paid leave under Sec. 206.6 of Canada Labour Code (CLC) was denied permission to use one of those days to take her husband to the doctor. You can only use your CLC days after you use up your 4 personal days under the collective agreement, she was told. The union claimed the employer violated both the CLC and collective agreement and the federal arbitrator agreed. The collective agreement didn’t say anything about employees having to use their personal days before exercising their CLC leave rights. By contrast, the CLC does say that nothing in the law may “be construed as affecting any rights or benefits of an employee under” a contract that provides the employee rights that are more favourable than the CLC [Unifor Local 6007 v Bell Canada, 2021 CanLII 46942 (CA LA), June 2, 2021].