Your OMERS Pension During a Strike or Lockout
This page provides information about what happens when you are involved in a strike or lockout that meets the definition of a strike or lockout under the Labour Relations Act, 1995.
When you are on strike or locked out, you do not earn any pay from your employer. Therefore, OMERS contributions are not deducted and there is no credited service added to your pension record for the strike or lockout period. For pension purposes, the time period of the strike or lockout is not included on your pension record. Your employer will report this time to OMERS as a leave period if it was a scheduled workday.
Yes. OMERS rules allow a member, on a voluntary basis, to make a service purchase for the period of a strike or lockout. Once the strike or lockout has ended, your employer will provide you with a service purchase application form. If you choose to pay the cost of the service purchase, the time period of the strike or lockout will be added to your pension record as credited service.
Leave periods that are not consecutive, such as a collection of one-day walkouts, can be reported as part of a calendar year. Absences for each calendar year can be administered separately, each resulting in different purchase deadline(s).
For example, if an eligible one-day strike occurred in 2022, the deadline to purchase would be December 31, 2024*. If another one-day walkout occurred in 2023, the deadline to purchase would be December 31, 2024.
Employers are not required to treat each day off independently. When reporting leaves, an employer can combine up to 20 days taken off each calendar year and report them as one leave. This is referred to as scattered days reporting and the cost to establish the credited service will be for the sum of the days off.
*In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the deadline to complete a leave purchase has been extended by one year for members who return from a leave of absence in 2020, 2021 or 2022.
The cost will be equal to “double contributions.” In other words, if you choose to make the purchase, you will pay both your portion and your employer’s portion of the contributions to cover the strike or lockout period based on your contributory earnings prior to the strike or lockout. Please see below for the applicable deadline to purchase the strike or lockout period.
You have the following options for payment:
a cheque – made payable to your employer;
an RRSP transfer – directly from your financial institution to OMERS; or
use your OMERS Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs).
You may also use a combination of the above.
Note: Payment can be made only after the strike or lockout has ended and you have received your election form from your employer.
When you elect to purchase the service, the deadline to pay is the end of the year following the year in which the leave ends*. For example, if the leave period ends in 2023, you will have until December 31, 2024 to purchase the service at double contributions.
*In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the deadline to complete a leave purchase has been extended by one year for members who return from a leave of absence in 2020, 2021 or 2022.
Purchasing a leave period, such as a strike or lockout, will increase your pension benefit because it results in more credited service. It may also keep your best five consecutive years of earnings (“best five”) at a higher level. Your credited service and your "best five" are both used to calculate your pension, so the higher your "best five" and credited service are, the higher your pension.
No. Any strike or lockout period that is not purchased will not be used to calculate your early retirement factors (30 years or 90 factor). Therefore, your decision to accept or to decline the service purchase opportunity may affect the earliest date that you can retire with an unreduced pension from the OMERS Plan.
A strike or lockout will not impact your OMERS disability benefits. However, if you no longer meet the required eligibility criteria for your OMERS disability benefit, you are required to report this to OMERS. Please see the Disability Benefits page for more information.
You can start a secure conversation once you sign into myOMERS or call OMERS Member Experience from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. at +1 416.369.2444 or toll-free at +1 800.387.0813.