Payroll services will be providing, as soon as possible, a special advance to MUSA members who returned to work on April 9.

“We understand that many of our employees who came back to work on Monday may be experiencing financial hardship and we are working hard to ensure that they can be compensated in advance of our normal payroll dates,” says Bob West, director, financial services.

The special advance will be based on an estimate of what each employee would net in five days' pay (representing the work period April 9-15). Staff will be notified next week of the exact date that this pay will be deposited into their bank accounts.

In addition to the special advance, the regular mid-month advance will be deposited on Monday, April 30 into the bank accounts of all MUSA employees who normally receive this advance.

MUSA staff who returned to work on Monday were not included in the April 12 payroll deposit. “There are two reasons we just couldn't do this,” says West. “First, we had to transfer the deposit early due to the Good Friday holiday so we could meet the bank's deadline. Second, significant and highly specialized programming changes were required to include these staff. Our system is not built in a way that allows us to make significant modifications on such short notice.”

West says programming changes must also be made to implement the special advance and as soon as this is done staff will be advised of when they will receive the advance.

Payroll considered issuing manual cheques but determined it was unable to do so under the current configuration of the system.