Faculty Collective Agreement: Cheat Sheet

Faculty Collective Agreement: Cheat Sheet

Remember: The word “Shall” is something the college has to do…make sure you keep an eye out for articles containing this word

Articles / Title / Synopsis
1 - 2 / Definitions/Recognition / A few important tidbits: the work day is defined as any scheduled day during which a member is assigned to perform duties by the College, unless otherwise specified in this collective agreement, a scheduled day shall be between Monday to Friday.
3 / Application / States that the agreement is binding upon the union, faculty, and college and these groups “shall” carry out the provisions of the agreement.
4 / College’s Responsibilities / a)To hire, assign, promote, demote, transfer, evaluate, direct, lay off, discipline or terminate the employment of Faculty Members; to plan and control all aspects of programs and services; (c) to establish and determine positions and vacancies, evaluate jobs, classify positions, establish qualification requirements of Faculty Members and specify Faculty Members’ duties; (d) to change existing facilities; (e) to enforce such operational requirements as stipulated by legislation or regulation…..
BUT: they must follow the collective agreement while doing the above things
5 / Joint Responsibilities / No lockouts or strikes during term of agreement
6 / Existing and Future Legislation / New laws or changes in the Community Colleges Act (found here http://nslegislature.ca/legc/statutes/community%20colleges.pdf) will nullify parts of the agreement that conflict with those changes…any changes/laws which benefit members may be added to the agreement at the request of union or management.
7 / Harassment and Discrimination / The college “shall” establish and maintain a policy and procedures on harassment and discrimination…procedures “shall” include the process for handling complaints and investigations. Any changes in the policy “shall” involve union consultation prior to implementation
Any member that is involved in a complaint (making one or having one made against you) “shall” have the right to have Union representation at all meetings involving the member. The member “shall” have the right to grieve any disciplinary action as well.
8 / Union Information / College “shall” designate bulletin board space for union notices and have space for union literature.
9 / College-Union Committee / 4 faculty + 4 college representatives (must include VP academic)
·  Supposed to allow communications between the college and union during the collective agreement and resolve common problems
·  No binding power, but can make recommendations to alleviate issues
·  Approved Minutes “shall” be posted within 5 working days following the next meeting
10 / Printing & Distributing of Agreement / College “shall” provide an electronic copy of agreement on ourNSCC and a link to that copy to each new member
·  College “shall” provide a hard copy to any member who asks
11 / Complaint, Grievance & Arbitration Procedure / Process has three stages:
1)  Complaint – if you feel unjustly treated by any action or lack of action by the college, you first have to discuss the complaint your immediate supervisor…no later than 21 days after the reason for the complaint. You may have Union representation when you discuss this. The supervisor then has 14 days to respond to complaint.
2)  Grievance – defined as a written dispute which describes a dispute in the application, interpretation or alleged violation of the agreement. You can initiate a grievance for yourself or on behalf of a group of members…all members of the group must sign it. The Union may act on behalf of the member at step 1(see below) and beyond.
·  You can withdraw a grievance at any stage by giving written notice. If you do not initiate the grievance within the time limits, then the grievance “shall” be deemed to be abandoned
Step 1: You have 42 days after the unjust action/lack of action to file a grievance.
·  The college then has 14 days in which it “shall” arrange a meeting between its representative that will hear the grievance and the member (you can have Union representation for this meeting)
·  Within 14 more days, the college must send a written decision to the member and the union accepting or denying the grievance…and they must give reasons if it is denied.
Step 2: If the grievance is not resolved, you have 14 more days for the member and Union to submit it in writing (along with the College’s reasons for denying from step 1) to another College representative (cannot be same person who denied it in Step 1)
·  College then has another 14 days to arrange a meeting between college and union. (member can be present at union’s discretion)
·  14 more days to present a decision in writing (again with reasons if it is denied)
***if the grievance is about a suspension, discharge, or layoff, the timeframes are shorter: only 7 days after receiving notice from employer, 7 more days for first meeting, 7 days for written response.
·  The union “shall” have the right to file a grievance based upon a difference in interpretation, application, administration, or alleged contravention of an article in the agreement. Timeframes are different for this as well.
3)  Arbitration – only for union initiated grievances concerning the application, interpretation or alleged violation of an article or articles of this Collective Agreement or grievances concerning discipline of a Faculty Member.
·  The arbitrator “shall” be chosen together by the union and the college within 14 days…if both sides cannot agree, the arbitrator will be chosen by the Minister
·  There is more…pages 13 and 14 of the agreement
12 / Workplace Diversity / The college/union must strive to make workplace inclusive
·  College may have designate competitions for newly created vacant positions or jobs not occupied by member with term status…and they have to inform the union prior to posting a designated competition
13 / Appointment and Termination of Employment / The college “shall” establish relevant criteria (based on skills knowledge, experience, education, other relevant operational requirements) for jobs.
·  If union asks, we “shall” be provided with reasons for the operational requirements and the scoring/rating system used in the application of the criteria in the selection process.
·  Any new vacancies “shall” be posted at each campus and the union must be informed.
Preference in Filling Vacancies
·  Members on reinstatement list first
·  If all skills deemed equal (within 8% of “ score”), Then preference is given to faculty members with regular status, then probationary, then term, then designated groups, then other college employees
Termination of Employment
·  You can resign in writing
·  Probationary, term, and auxiliary members may be given notice or pay in lieu of notice during first 12 months of appointment (4 weeks for auxiliary) or following 12 months from date of appointment (8 weeks for auxiliary). The college “shall” provide reasons for termination if you ask.
·  The college may fire you for just cause.
·  If you accept a management role, you may request a leave of absence of up to 2 years (a regular probationary period). You “shall” maintain the right to be re-instated to your old job or go to the reinstatement list (if your job doesn’t exist anymore)
14 / Position Categories / This section describes the contact hours defined in each type of position (full-time, part time, auxiliary, casual)
The important part in here is this:
“The college SHALL give preference to establishing and maintaining continuing full-time (52 week) positions”
15 / Status / Describes probationary period requirements
·  College “shall” review the performance of each probationary full or part time member.
16 / Reduced Instructional Assignment Plan / This allows you to job-share if your personal circumstances require it.
17 / Faculty Exchange, Secondment, and Temporary Reassignment Opportunities / Regular full time members can apply up to 6 months before the start of the secondment
·  Can be industry related, education related, and the experience will benefit the member and his/her students
·  Up to 12 months, but timing can be weird…college will try to limit disruptions to students
·  College has to respond to application 4 months before the start of the secondment.
·  Still get regular pay while on secondment (if the new job offers better pay, then you can opt to not get paid by college…but that has to be organized)
18 / Auxiliary Faculty Members / Describes the parts of the agreement which apply to auxiliary members….and discusses vacation pay, holidays, personal leaves, other leaves (pregnancy, parental, adoption, bereavement), FAPS, and sick leave.
19 / Faculty Duties / This is the indentured servitude article. But it also dictates that the college “shall” assign a workload after consultation with faculty and using the workload guidelines.
·  There is a faculty duties committee in this article to help deal with the changing face of each job and that hears appeals of workloads.
Workload Appeals Process
Step 1: You have 5 days after receiving workload to inform AC of your concerns in writing, then AC has 7 days to meet with you. (if this does not happen, go to step 2) Within 5 more days, the AC shall respond to your concerns in writing.
Step 2: If meeting with AC did not happen, or you are not satisfied with his response, you have 5 days to advise (in writing) the Principal of your concerns and request a meeting. Principal then has 7 days to respond in writing to the concerns. If meeting is not held within 7 days, go to step 3.
Step 3: If no meeting happened at step 2 or you are unhappy with the result, you have 5 days to submit a detailed explanation of the concern to the VP academic. She “shall” arrange a meeting with you and the workload committee within has 20 days (in person or over phone). Then the committee has 5 days to respond in writing and decision “shall” be final. Committee can find the workload excessive and make AC adjust it.
Work schedules are also described…everyone is Monday – Friday unless otherwise agreed to (see 19.7 d, e, f, and g), and no set hours are mentioned.
If you work on two or more sites, the college “shall” schedule time for a meal break, exclusive of travel time.
20 / PD / This describes the various leaves with or without pay for professional development.
Learning Leave Fund: $275000 annually with surplus carried over to next year. The money is to be used for long term (4 months to 1 year) and short term (less than 4 months) learning leaves. The leaves will be decided upon by the Learning Leave Committee.
The Committee may approve Learning Leaves for professional, technical, academic, research or other activities where such leaves support College priorities or priorities established by a Faculty Member that have been approved by the College. College priorities shall be made available to Faculty Members upon request.
·  If the PD is college required, such as CCEDP, then the college must pay your expenses (travel, meals, accommodations)
FAPS
·  College “shall” provide the time off to go to FAPS and pay for cost of approved travel (to and from location…you may have to share a car if more than one person is traveling from a location).
Tuition Waiver for Daughters, Sons, Spouses
·  College will pay for ½ year’s tuition (applied to second half of each year)…max the college will spend each year is $40000. If they will hit max, then the waiver will be lowered accordingly.
Self-Directed Learning Days
·  You have 2 days in the third semester of each year for self-directed learning that supports the member’s role in supporting learning.
Individual Learning Account
·  You get $350 each year (can be held over a second year for a max of $700) to spend on things that will help your learning goals. Books, conference fees, learning software and other things (just not hardware) can be purchased using this.
21 / Performance Review / The college must have a performance review policy to give feedback to members. After any review, you “shall” have the opportunity to discuss results and make written comments on the review.
22 / Faculty Salary Plan / Describes rates of pay, retroactivity, and method of pay
23 / Union Deductions / Describes how and when union fees will be deducted from pay
24 / Official Employment File / College has a confidential file on each employee and they “shall” allow you to view yours during regular business hours.
·  If a document goes in the file (offer of employment, employee success plans) a copy must also be given to you
·  You can ask to have some documents that you feel are inaccurate removed (provided they are not disciplinary)
·  If the documents are disciplinary, and you did not dispute them, you “shall” have the right to attach comments related to the action to the file .
·  Records of disciplinary action may be removed after 4 years (if nothing else has happened) or if your performance warrants the removal.
·  It is confidential: only you, NSCC line management & human resources, and your Union representation (if authorized by you) may look at it.
25 / Continuous Employment, Continuous Service, and Seniority
Calculation of Service
Definition of Seniority
Loss of Seniority
Leave of Absence / Continuous employment means uninterrupted employment and includes pregnancy leaves, sick leave, leave of absence, learning leave, vacation & holidays, suspension with or without pay, lay-offs of up to 42 months, deferred salary leave, exchange, secondment, other leaves that are in the collective agreement and leaves agreed to by both parties.