VCTA Newsbulletin * 7 Vanier College Teachers' Association

November 11, 2013

Negotiations are coming!

Some Departments have already started talking

about negotiation demands. This is a good sign

since negotiations will be starting soon. We have

already started looking at the Central Table

demands at a General Assembly that voted to make

salary a priority demand. As was reported in

Bulletin 7, at the Regroupement cégep (the group

where reps from all of the cégeps in Fneeq meet)

the motion was changed to say that, although salary

is seen as an important demand, it is clear that

matters that cost money at the sectorial table are

also important.

What are the negotiating tables? In the past we

have always negotiated as part of a bigger group-

often in a common front with most of the other

public and para-public employees in Quebec. So

matters which are of interest to everyone, such as

pensions, salaries, employment equity, maternity

leave, paternity leave, etc., are negotiated at the

Central Table. Before a common front is formed,

general assemblies will be consulted to see if the

majority of our local unions wish to negotiate in a

common front. Then matters that especially concern

college teachers as a group, are negotiated at a

sectorial table with our negotiators talking to

negotiators from the Federation des cégeps (the

federation of cégep administrators) and from the

relevant ministry. Often in the past, these matters

have been negotiated in a cartel with the other

cégep federation/s. Before we decide whether or not

to form such a cartel, it will be brought to local

general assemblies for a vote. These matters

concern our working conditions, job security,

resources being put into the colleges for teachers'

salaries (the MASSE SALARIALE), continuing

education, vacations, holidays, etc. Then at the end

of negotiations, a new collective agreement is

supposed to be signed (sometimes the government

passes a law- a decree to regulate our conditions)

for a certain number of years. Our present collective

agreement can be found at:

http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/en/cegep/convention/Archiv

e-2010-2015/

The protocol for negotiations is for Association

Council to consider the matter and make

recommendations to the General Assembly. The

General Assembly then looks at the

recommendations and makes the final decisions and

VCTA Newsbulletin *8 vanier College Teachers' Association

November 12, 2013

VCTA General Assembly, Wed. Nov. 20 UB One Item Agenda: Academic Dean’s Mandate Renewal

Room to be announced. RSVP at 7053 for lunch

decides what to do with the recommendations.

Since our administrators sit on the other side of the

negotiations, we do not discuss the negotiating

demands in any bodies of which administrators are

members. Should the VCTA wish to consult our

members of Academic Council or Joints, we call a

meeting of our teacher members.

Why did Salary

Relativity/Disruption 21 go to

Joints?

The salary relativity/disruption 21 motion is not part

of our usual negotiations. The government of

Quebec has been working on the issue of salary

equity for many years, following a negotiations

demand many years ago. The demand was that jobs

should be valued according to the job, rather than

according to whether the job was done by men or by

women. As a result, all jobs in the public and para-

public labour force are being ranked as to their

value. Most jobs have been ranked already, and at

the end of the last negotiations, the question of

where cégep teachers should be ranked was sent to

a committee, with the decision to be made before

the end of this collective agreement. At the

moment, we are ranked at 22, the same as

elementary and secondary teachers. We are asking

for a higher ranking and the continued recognition

of our MA's and PhD's. The Federation des cégeps

(our administrators’ federation) agrees with us that

we should not be ranked below elementary and

secondary teachers and that our diplomas should be

recognized since cégeps are higher education. So on

this one question, the teachers and the

administrators have the same interest. It is in light

of this that we are taking the motion on salary

relativity to all departments, committees at Vanier

and to the next Board of Governors. But the

decision to do this was made in a General

Assembly and then sent to the other bodies.

Vanier's Position on the Charter of Values

Vanier College now has an official position on the Charter of Values:

http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/newsroom/2013/10/vanier-college-board-of-directors-opposes-

sections-of-the-proposed-quebec-charter-of-values/

You should recognize the motion since it is the motion that was passed at the VCTA General

Assembly on October 1, thanks to the initiative of our Women's Studies Program. At one of

their first meetings of the year, Women's Studies sent a motion against the Quebec Charter of

Values to Association Council. After some rewriting, the motion was recommended to the

VCTA General Assembly where it was passed with the wording that was later sent to and

passed by the Vanier Board of Directors. It is now an official Vanier College position on the

Quebec Charter of Values. As such, we should spread the word with our students and friends

outside of Vanier. The VCTA Executive will be taking this motion to the Fneeq Conseil federal

in Quebec City this week, where all of the various groups of Fneeq, including the cégep unions,

the university chargés de cours and the private colleges will meet to hammer out a Fneeq

position on the Charter of Values.

A number of years ago, the VCTA made an agreement with the College so that teachers do not

have to do a transfer of availability for the days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Of

Holidays A number of years ago, the VCTA made an agreement with the College so that teachers do not have to do a transfer

of availability for the days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Of course they will still have to fulfill “their

contractual obligations” during that week, notably the submissions of final grades”. This year, the last day to submit

your grades is December 31 at midnight.

Humanitarian Work We now have a clause in the Transfer of Availability Policy to allow teachers to do humanitarian work as a

volunteer, without doing a transfer of availability. Appropriate documentation would have to be submitted to the

Faculty Dean who can judge that a transfer of availability is not necessary if the work is of positive value to the

College. This work would have to be done outside the regular teaching part of the semester.