On April 17, to mark Equality Day, USJE is shining a spotlight on our CSC Sentence Management Officer (SMO) members. Overwhelmingly women, many of these SMOs have been signaling to CSC for years that their jobs have become unbearable.
CSC has the legal obligation to ensure accurate sentence management, however, too often overburdened SMOs are led to believe that this legal obligation is their personal responsibility, when it is not.
In 2023, over 90% of SMOs nationwide signed an impassioned letter to CSC, outlining that:
- their caseloads were impossible to complete in their regular hours,
- they regularly worked unpaid overtime, and the
- resulting stress was causing them undue harm.
Now, two years later, the average SMO’s caseload has only increased.
In contrast to SMOs, a majority of Correctional Officers and Tech Services workers are male and when they work outside of their regular hours, they are regularly paid overtime.
Why are our SMO members, who are primarily female, not paid the overtime that is regularly granted to Correctional Officers and Tech Services workers, who are primarily male?
CSC’s own March 2023 internal audit noted that “attracting and retaining qualified candidates for the SMO position, classified at an AS-02 level, has been difficult as it requires a level of skill and aptitude that is not generally required from other entry level positions…”.
This internal audit also indicated that CSC had not met the necessary “recruitment, hiring and promotion to take into account the current and future needs of the Sentence Management Program”.
This is a crisis. The working conditions of SMOs must be improved immediately.
On this day, USJE urges CSC to:
- provide paid overtime to SMOs, as necessary
- allow for hybrid work which, having proved effective, will diminish the stress on SMOs
- hire more SMOs
- reduce caseloads to 275 cases per SMO
- provide 1 CR-4 per SMO department
- provide sufficient time for SMOs to undertake effective training, and
- revert to institutionally based SMO caseloads.
On this day, USJE urges each of our CSC Locals to:
- add “SMO issues” as a standing item to LMC agendas.
And, on this day, USJE urges our SMO members, when their caseloads are too full to be completed in their regular hours, to request – in writing
that they be offered:
- paid overtime hours and/or
- prioritization of their caseloads
and that they not accept to:
- volunteer their time
- believe that the legal obligation that belongs to CSC belongs to them personally.
All USJE members who find their workloads too high to be accomplished in their working hours should request – in writing – that they be offered paid overtime or a prioritization of their work. Any member who does so and is not offered one of the above should reach out to their Local USJE representative.
On Equality Day, USJE pledges to continue to fight for overtime pay to be offered, when necessary, to all workers, regardless of gender!
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On April 17, 1985, the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect. Since that day, Equality Day has been celebrated across Canada.