Bargaining Bulletin #15
Employer finally responds to our monetary proposals: Some progress, but stonewalling on NREG pay and paramedical
Dear colleagues:
Today the CFA received a new set of proposals from the employer. For the first time, they have offered counter-proposals that respond to the original monetary proposals the CFA tabled on 30 January. (See the end of this bulletin for detail about our original proposals and the modified monetary package we tabled in May.)
We are still analysing their proposals, and are going to explore them further in our next meeting, this Friday. There are some significant negatives in what the employer tabled today, but also some positive signs.
The major negatives are:
· Outright refusal to remove or even change the cap on NREG scale placement after 12 sections of work, or to adjust the secondary scale for lab supervisors. They have the funding for these proposals, but refuse to use it. Removing the NREG placement cap would recognize and respect the commitment faculty make by working 12 sections at CapU, and would bolster recruitment and retention of faculty. But they refuse.
· Refusal to update the limit of $750/service for paramedical coverage, even though this was set in 1995. They claim our benefits are the gold standard—despite 28 years of inflation and other evidence to the contrary.
· Refusal to change the academic year to start on 1 September, unless regular faculty pay for this change by having a month of salary clawed back when they resign or retire. We are baffled by their throwing up barriers to a change that everyone (faculty, staff, administrators including HR) agrees would be a big improvement for CapU.
· Continued resistance to our proposals for research and scholarship. They have retreated to a proposal we rejected last spring, for a revival of a failed, redundant “community-based research” project that would eat up too much of the government money, and likely wind up just going, unused, back into the administration’s general revenue (and annual surpluses).
About the non-reg pay scale proposal: Even though the employer lifted the scale cap from step 8 to step 5 in 2020 (using the pot of government money available at the time), their hired negotiator, Geoff Tierney, says the administration won’t do so now. This is not a government rule. It is a choice that Paul Dangerfield and Kartik Bhardwa are making to deny the value of our most vulnerable employees.
The justification Mr Tierney offered is that “CapU pays NREGs better than other colleges and universities.” They have not provided evidence for this claim. They have not responded to the evidence we have provided that other locals and colleges pay better: No one in our sector has any cap on scale placement; many pay regulars and non-regulars the same (e.g., VCC, Langara, Kwantlen; etc.). The facts do not matter to the employer. We are gathering more evidence that their claim is untrue, in case facts may yet hold some sway.
There has, however, been positive movement on some of the CFA monetary proposals. The employer finally addressed some of our proposals to improve our existing benefits plan and achieve fairer pay. They are willing to provide:
· $425/year for the Health Care Spending Account for every employee—including those not on the benefits plan. We pushed for this instead of their “Wellness Spending Account.” However, the administration still wants to claw back unused amounts after 2 years (rather than transferring them to our spending accounts).
· Higher hourly wage for Private Music Instructors and Private Music Instructors: they have finally accepted our proposal, after years of refusing to address pay for these faculty.
· Increasing Clinical Psychologist coverage from $1,000 to $1,500. The employer has also told us that the existing coverage includes Clinical Counselling (i.e., we already have $1,000 for either psychologist or counsellor care). This was a surprise to us. We asked HR last week when the existing psychologist coverage came to include counselling. They don’t know the answer. Today they said they are still looking into this.
The employer also accepted (finally, after much back-and-forth last spring) our proposal on multi-location work and travel funding, and our proposed committee on vacation banking.
There are other details, of course, and one non-monetary proposal (support for Indigenous faculty) that we are still working on. We will provide more details after we meet with the employer on Friday. We hope that meeting will provide clarity about what they have proposed, and whether they are willing to address the problem of inequitable pay for non-regular faculty.
Proposal details (agreed and under negotiation) on CFA website
Last week we posted on our Bargaining page all of the agreed CFA proposals (signed amendments to the collective agreement): https://www.capilanofaculty.com/blog/bargaining-agreed-proposals
That page also includes, in “CFA proposals – tabled 15 September,” the most recent proposals the CFA tabled on monetary items and non-monetary items. To see the original proposals that both parties tabled on 30 January, see Bargaining Bulletin #3.)
Once we have more details on the proposals the employer tabled today, we will post their proposals and our notes and counter-proposals to the Bargaining page on our site.
In solidarity,
Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff