TRAVEL POLICY

Comparative Analysis Memo

Canada Post has approached the Association and requested that we move from the current Travel Policy to the new one.

Both policies state their purpose is to provide for the reimbursement of business expenses incurred by employees for the conduct of corporate business on behalf of the Corporation and do not constitute income or other compensation that would open the way for personal gain. Employees are expected to present themselves at their workplace on their own time and at their own expense.

The current policy defines headquarters area and traveller status as:

  • An area surrounding the workplace having a radius of 16 km centered on the workplace; and
  • Absence from the traveller’s headquarters area on corporate business travel and at a location, which using the most direct road route, is more than 16 km from the travellers home.

The proposed policy will no longer rely on a headquarters area and will replace these definitions with the following:

  • Local Travel Status defined as any corporate business travel within the normal local area of an employee using means such as taxis, public transit, personal vehicle, rental vehicle or fleet vehicle, and not requiring overnight accommodations; and
  • Non Local Travel requires formal pre-approval, air or train fare and a hotel accommodation.

The current policy provides per diems (or part thereof) if the employee is travelling outside of their headquarters area.

The proposed policy states that per diems (or part thereof):

  • Will be provided if the employee is travelling on non-local travel (air or train fare and a hotel accommodation); or
  • May be provided if the employee is required to travel at least 40 km from their assigned workplace (regardless of mode of transportation).

Even though the per diems would increase from $46.75 to $102.65 for breakfast, lunch, dinner and incidentals (with an overnight accommodation), the travel distance required to necessitate a per diem has increased from 16 km to 40 km.

The current policy allows an employee travelling by personal vehicle to claim mileage based on the concept of “the lesser of”:

  • The lesser of your distance from your home to your business destination v. your distance from your workplace to your business destination.

The proposed policy replaces the method of calculating mileage from the concept of “the lesser of” to “less your normal commute”:

  • The employee would tally their total mileage driven for the day and deducted normally the distance travelled from their home to their office/workplace and the distance normally travelled from their office/workplace to their home.

Employees who live a far distance from their workplace would have to deduct this distance as their normal commute when they do not report to their workplace at the start of their shift and/or at the end of their shift.  It is anticipated that many APOC members would be significantly impacted by this change.

For these reasons, the Association does not believe that the proposed policy is beneficial to our members. In fact, we believe that many of our members will be detrimentally impacted by the application of the proposed policy.

Nevertheless, we continue to discuss these important issues with the Corporation in an attempt to bring this matter to a mutually agreeable resolution.