1. Improved Compensation
FSA 2012 Bargaining Proposals
Improved Compensation
a fair and reasonable salary increase
The value of faculty salaries has dropped significantly, primarily due to five years of near-zero wage increases over the last decade. This creates serious problems just as the system is under pressure to attract and retain faculty because of:
New student spaces
The creation of six new Universities
Increased national and international competition
Increased international student enrolment
Pending retirement of over half of current faculty who are over fifty 1

2. Additional Compensation Items
Increased and timely access to employee and dependent tuition waiver courses (staff=70%, faculty=66%).
Increased rates for mileage allowance (staff=70%, faculty=80%).
Payment of shift differential ($1) for hours worked after 4:30 p.m. should be extended to all staff rather than just janitorial and maintenance positions. Graveyard shifts should be compensated at a higher rate (Article 17.3; 60%). Additionally, Article 17.7 (Call Out) should include work done by “Snow Captains” in winter months. 2

3. Non-regular Issues
To provide improvements to the rights and working conditions of sessional (non-regular) faculty, the following changes should be made to the collective agreement:
Article 18.14—Assignment of Courses for Faculty: Step 6 should become Step 5, thereby allocating additional courses to qualified sessional faculty before allocating overloads to Type B faculty working at 100% workload fractions.
Article 28.8—Type C and Sessional Employees Access to Benefits, Article (b), Eligibility and Included Benefits need to be revised to allow greater access to benefit entitlements. Currently, these benefits are only available to those sessional faculty replacing faculty on sabbatical leaves. 3

4. Improvements to Benefits
Increased rates for mileage allowance (staff=70%, faculty=80%).
Equalization of tuition assistance per year for faculty and staff (Article 24.4; staff=90%, faculty=60%).
Improvements to coverage under special leave provisions (Article 25.7), which should cover emergency care-giving duties and specialist medical appointments for employee dependents and immediate family members. Additionally, expanded categories of eligibility for special leave for bereavement to include relationships other than those listed in 25.7 (a).
Rights to extended maternity leave (article 23.3) should be grievable if not granted (staff=63%, faculty=67%). 4

5. Pension Plan Improvements
FSA proposal from bargaining survey: Pension plan should provide for a phased-in retirement plan with employer to pay pre-retirement share of benefits i.e. employee could drop to ½ time (with corresponding loss in salary) during year one or two before retirement without loss of benefit coverage. (staff = 80%, faculty=82%). 5

6. Job Security
Whistle Blower protection policy should be added to the collective agreement to protect employees who disclose wrongdoings.
The collective agreement should acknowledge and protect faculty cross-appointed in more than one department.
A system of tenure, grandfathered for existing Type B faculty, implemented for new hires. (discussed as part of rank and tenure) 6

7. Other Issues (some requiring additional resources)
Staff Issue: Criteria for access to funded education leave should be extended beyond seniority only (Article 24.3 (b); 59%).
Faculty should have a choice between a single-semester sabbatical every four years (funded at 100% of salary) and a full year sabbatical every seven years (funded at 90% of salary), (86%).
Department head selection process (Article 11.7) should be expanded and clarified to cover unusual situations (80%).
Department head releases and compensation in lieu of releases should be equitable and transparent (97%). To ensure this, new language should be added to Article 18—Working Conditions for teaching faculty. 7

8. Other Issues continued…
Academic director release and compensation should be equitable and transparent (97%).
Increase professional development time allocated to Directors to 20 days (Article 20.2).
Article 18.9a, the 150-student minimum, should be abolished because no one is enforcing it and it is an unreasonable expectation for some instructional areas.
The collective agreement should contain language that ensures that workload for Trades instructors is equitable, and that they are able to access their entitlements to 20 days of professional development as well as non-instructional duty time through possible expansion of Article 18.7. 8

9. Other Issues continued…
The recommendation of FSA members of a joint committee on Workload for Lab Instructors should be adopted: “…that the job category [Article 18.6] be discontinued and that all references to “Lecture” and “Lab” faculty in the Collective Agreement be standardized to read simply “faculty” or “instructor(s)” as the context might indicate.”
Increasingly heavy workloads associated with the development and delivery of on-line instruction should be re-examined with a view to re-weighting on-line course development and/or delivery, possibly through a joint-committee Letter of Agreement (LOA) process. 9

10. Other Issues continued…
Article 10.4, Academic Freedom, should be amplified and clarified (77%).
A system of rank and promotion should be bargained this round (61%). The grandparenting procedure should grant Associate Professor to all current post-probationary faculty who have completed one three-year review.
A system of promotion and rank should be implemented in conjunction with tenure (61%). 10