Do teachers have two months of paid vacation?

A lot has been said and written about the working conditions of teachers in recent weeks. Salaries made the headlines, but vacations were also discussed on social media. Widely shared publications have denounced the absence of paid leave by the employer, despite the Labor Standards Act. The famous “two months of paid vacation in the summer” which make so many people jealous is only a figment of the imagination. Really ?

“We have no employer-paid leave. We finance all our leave (vacations and holidays) from our own pay,” Valerie wrote in a post titled “How Teacher Salaries Really Work” which sparked a lot of reaction on Facebook.

“This sets the record straight. For those who envy our vacations, remember that they are all at our expense,” commented an Internet user who we guess is a teacher.

Another reaction among many others: “They have zero weeks of paid vacation while even a teenager who works at Subway will have 2 weeks.”

Debates on teacher remuneration also broke out on the social network The assertion, however, did not convince everyone. “But it’s the same for all employees! Our vacation time is a portion of our salary deducted throughout the year. »

So who’s telling the truth? Do teachers have the particularity of being forced to “finance their vacations”, to use their expression? What about other workers, paid by the year and by the hour?

To the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE), I was initially warned that teacher compensation is one of the “most complex,” which can cause confusion and frustration, especially among younger teachers. It goes like this: “You work, you get paid. You don’t work, you don’t get paid,” Benoît Giguère, vice-president of labor relations at the FAE, told me.

Since they work 200 days per year, teachers are paid for 200 days.

Since 1997, however, remuneration has been spread over the entire year, i.e. 26 paychecks.

Thus, when the school is closed, due to a holiday, spring break, Christmas or summer, teachers still receive income. This method, imposed by the government of Lucien Bouchard, is not called into question, indicate the FAE and the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ). On the contrary, as a general rule, their members are in favor of it because it greatly facilitates budget management.

To allow this spread, the annual salary is not divided by 200, but rather by 260, which corresponds to the number of working days in a year (52 weeks x 5).

The current salary of $92,027, at the top of the scale, equates to $347 per day (1/260^e) or $460 per day (1/200^e).

In their pay, teachers receive the smaller amount of the two. The difference allows them to obtain 26 paychecks per year. It is probably this way of doing things that gives teachers the impression that they are financing their vacations.

But what you need to know is that it works the same way for all workers who have an annual salary.

When you are paid for the year, you do not receive extra from your employer during the holidays. ” It does not work like that ! The employer who agrees to give, say, $100,000, whether for 48 weeks of work or for 40, pays remuneration to retain the services of the person all year long,” explains Louise Overbeek, master of teaching in the accounting sciences department at HEC Montréal.

However, the teachers’ pay stub is different from that of other employees paid by the year, which undoubtedly confuses the issue.

Let’s imagine a computer scientist who earns $92,027. On the document provided by his employer, a certain proportion of his annual salary is entered on the “vacation” line and another is on the “public holidays” line. For their part, teachers observe that 100% of their remuneration of $92,027 is paid as “salary”.

But at the end of the year, concretely, it doesn’t change anything at all. Both professionals get exactly the same amount of money whether they had 2, 4 or 12 weeks of vacation. Of course, this complies with Labor Standards.

Things are different in the case of this teenager who works at Subway. Because he is paid hourly, he accumulates additional vacation money over time. This is commonly called the 4%. This amount paid by the employer to the worker on leave is added to the ordinary remuneration.

As of 1^er April, elementary and secondary teachers who are at the top of their salary scale will receive $100,280, or $501.40 per day worked, even if pay stubs will instead show $385.69.