Bargaining 2005

On Tuesday, July 19, 2005, the KFA reached agreement with the employer on the ways to achieve a 2% lift on the salary grid, effective July 17, 2005. Now that this piece of our negotiations has concluded, we would like to outline what changes/improvements have occurred in the collective agreement for the period of March 31, 2004 - April 1, 2007.

Changes agreed to March 23, 2005

As we previously reported, the new collective agreement will have a rollover of many of the articles, except that it is to be “harmonized”, that is, the previous common agreement and local agreement will become one integrated document. In addition, the following changes were agreed to in the March 23, 2005 Memorandum of Agreement:

1. A Common Faculty Professional Development Fund set at .6% of faculty salary. 
   (New Letter of Understanding: Common Faculty Professional Development Fund)
2. Eye vision exam coverage of $75 every 2 years. 
   (Article 9.2.1 Benefit Provisions)
3. All required health and safety apparel and equipment supplied by the employer. 
   (New Article: Health and Safety Equipment)
4. Retirement bridging benefit coverage for 90 days following retirement. 
   (Article 9.2.1 Benefit Provisions)
5. New provision for partial sick leave and partial disability benefits. 
   (Letter of Understanding Re: Partial Sick Leave)
6. An addition to the current Letter of Understanding #10 on International Work that ensures no KFA member is forced to take on Kwantlen work in another country. 
   (Letter of Understanding #10: International Work)
7. Revisions to the harassment procedure including new articles on informal resolution and recognition of the union as the exclusive bargaining agent and representative during harassment investigations. 
   (Article 2.3 Procedures)

Arbitrated decisions reached June 17, 2005

As you may recall, a number of issues agreed to at the Common Table but not accepted by our employer were referred to mediation/arbitration with Vince Ready. Because of his decisions, the following changes will be made to our collective agreement:

1. New compassionate care provision allowing up to 8 weeks’ leave without pay but with benefit coverage and seniority protection and the possibility of additional time. 
   (Article 7.8 Compassionate Care Leave)
2. New definition of common law partner. 
   (Article 8 Parental Leave)
3. Improvements to and clarification of parental leave. 
   (Article 8 Parental Leave)
4. Improvements to targeted labour adjustment strategies to ensure alternatives to layoff are canvassed and a separation of the list of strategies some depending on funding and others not.
   (Article 6.4 Targeted Labour Adjustment)
5. New article on Distributed Learning with an expanded definition. No one will be required to deliver distributed learning programs/courses from home, but where the faculty member is assigned and agrees to the employer’s request to teach all or part of the course from home, “the employer shall provide the appropriate technology and pay for the reasonable and approved costs of delivering those courses from home.” 
   (Article 6.7 Educational Technology/Distributed Learning)
6. Reduction in rights of non-regular faculty by a) deleting the right of regularization for those who have had a workload equivalent of 120% over 2 years; b) reducing the rights of non-regular type 2 faculty for additional type 2 work; and c) deleting the right of non-regular type 1 faculty members with 2 or more years FTE to be given preference for type 2 positions. 
   (Vince Ready Arbitration results, July 17, 2005)

Salary improvement and collective agreement changes as a result of 2% value shifting negotiations reached July 19, 2005

KFA members voted for the salary option that included a 2% stipend on each step of the salary scale to be effective no later than August 1, 2005 with the understanding that the value of the 2% had to be found within our collective agreement. The employer had tried to block one avenue of finding some of the value of the 2% in the Cross College Meeting Times by invoking Bill 28, The Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act, but lost that argument in arbitration. Once Vince Ready rendered his decision, we were finally able to negotiate the “2% solution.”

On July 19, 2005, we reached agreement on how the 2% would be found and what the consequential changes would be for our collective agreement. The new salary scale is attached and the changes to the collective agreement are listed below. The new agreement also includes a lift of 1.5% plus X (an amount to be determined) for all non-regular type 1 faculty in 2006 and a new top of scale of $77,187 effective April 1, 2006. This amount may also increase depending on the increase achieved by the BCGEU public sector agreements in 2006. 
(See Appendix A - New Salary Scale for additional details)

Consequential changes to collective agreement

1. New Common Professional Development Fund of .6% of salary budget
2. Increase of Personal Professional Development funds from $100 to $350 per faculty member for 2005-06 (in 2006, the fund would revert to $100 per member)
3. Elimination of cross college meeting times
   (Vince Ready Arbitration results - Cross College Meeting Times, July 17, 2005) 
4. Elimination of requirement to pay Employment Insurance rebate to employees
5. Reduction in Education Leave fund from 2.1% of salary budget to 1.6%
6. Reduction in Status Reassessment dates to determine non-regular type 2 status from three dates to one
   (Proposed Amendments to non-regular faculty language)

Additional information

In our discussions with the employer, we discovered that the Educational Leave fund consistently has had a carry over, with this year’s carry over being more than half the fund. Even though there is to be reduction in the fund, we are assured that all the currently approved Educational Leaves for this year will be funded and the overall number of educational leaves for the following year should be only slightly reduced.

The new Common Professional Development fund is to provide funding for faculty members who apply for a variety of purposes such industry based or specialty training, leave for research and/or scholarship. A committee will be struck to set the process and criteria for accessing this fund. Final approval will be by a Senior Manager.

The Personal Professional Development fund (Article 16.04) will be increased by $250 to $350 for this fiscal year, but before faculty can apply for the funds, the KFA and management must meet by September 30, 2005 to clarify the requirements for reimbursement. Any excess funds from this fiscal year will be transferred, as before, into the Education Leave fund.

We have agreed to new language under Article 1.04(d) that clarifies the definition of non-regular type 1 faculty members, sets only one assessment date for the establishment of non-regular type 2 positions, and provides for additional compensation (scale plus 25%) for non-regular type 2 faculty members who receive additional work above their workload percentage and additional compensation (32%) for non-regular type 1 faculty members when their annualized workload becomes 50% or greater.

We also have a commitment from the employer for “constructive consultation” in any timetable review and before making any changes to the timetable.

What is next?

Now that these negotiations are concluded, we need to incorporate the changes into the new collective agreement and undertake the job of combining the old Common Agreement and local agreement into one document. In the meantime, we will post the new language agreed to on the KFA website so that you can refer to it if needed.

In the fall, we will also be entering into “facilitated” discussions with the employer on the Performance Review/Evaluation procedure and practice.

This has been a tough round of bargaining, especially given the 0-0% mandate imposed by the provincial government. We are pleased that we have finally reached this agreement. We detected in the last few weeks a new willingness on the part of management to work with us to find solutions and hope that this trend will continue.

Thanks to our Working Conditions Committee, Executive Committee, Bargaining Team and FPSE

We are sure all KFA members will join us in thanking our Working Conditions Committee members who developed the bargaining proposals, the Bargaining Team members who spent countless hours in negotiations and the Executive Committee who provided guidance and direction. It truly was a team effort and all represented our KFA members well. We also turned to the resources of FPSE and benefited enormously from the advice and expertise provided by the staff and leadership there.

If you have any questions, please call Maureen Shaw at local 2149.

Additional Information:
 Memorandum of Agreement
 New Provisions resulting from Mediation/Arbitration
 Appendix A - New Salary Scale
 Personal Professional Development
 Personal Professional Development - Procedure for Claiming
 Proposed Amendments to non-regular faculty language
 Faculty Professional Development Fund

You will need Adobe Acrobat to view the above items.

[back]