The following does not affect casual research assistants.
You should have all received an e-mail describing the upcoming pay frequency changes at McGill.
On January 1st 2104, McGill will switch to a bi-weekly pay cycle as well as introduce a 2 week delay into the pay system. As a result, the first pay on Thursday January 16th will only be for 3 days’ work (January 1st to 3rd).
In order to compensate for the decreased pay cheque, McGill initially was going to issue an interest free loan and then recover the loan over 2 years. McGill eventually agreed to change the pay back of the loan to the last paycheck the employee receives at McGill.
The loan that your will receive is an interest-free loan. Interest-free loans are a taxable benefit. However, you only have to pay taxes of the amount of interest you should have had to pay. For example, if the loan is for 1000$, the taxable portion is the 10$ you would have had to pay if McGill had charged 1% interest. Depending on your tax brackets, this would amount to about $5 in taxes each year.
You have the option to refuse the interest-free loan. You can pay back the loan prematurely at any time.
If you previously e-mailed HR to refuse the loan, you can e-mail HR to agree to the loan. However, you must do so before December 15th.
Obviously, if it were up to us, McGill would have never introduced a delay in their pay system. We are happy that they listened to our concerns and offered to only take back the loan at the end of an employee’s career at McGill.
We invite you to come to our general assembly on December 16th at 5pm in Leacock 26 to answer any questions you might have about the pay frequency change.