On Friday, March 15th, the Labour-Management Committee for Units 1, 2, and 3 met with the employer to continue discussion on a number of outstanding items pertaining to the application of our collective agreements.
A number of positive items were achieved or confirmed:
- Archived postings that are missing from the CUPE jobs site should be restored in the week of March 18th.
- The retroactive vacation pay increase for members with 5 or more years of service will be on the March pay. It will be retroactive to September 2017 and automatic moving forward. Years of service will follow the same logic as our benefits: any contract gap of more than 5 months does not count towards years of service.
- A meeting with Finance and Faculty Relations is being arranged in order to discuss PER issues. In the meantime, Unit 2 members should contact Charles Bisram in Faculty Relations if they need to know their PER balance.
- We will need to recruit members for two joint committees, one for issues in Nursing and one for childcare at Glendon campus.
- The PhD completion Fund (Unit 1) is moving towards a model with multiple deadlines in recognition that not all PhD students complete in the summer semester.
The details of the Unit 1 summer funding opt-in are still being elaborated. The Committee asked a number of clarification questions concerning the Unit 3 GA Assignment Protocol which the employer drafted. The union’s position is that this program needs to be something that will work for Principal Investigators in order for it to function, and therefore should maximize the funds they can access. The employer has also suggested that last year’s Unit 2 Research Leave exercise be included in this year’s, but would not guarantee that all four would be granted; it will depend on the quantity and quality of the applications. This will be a matter for further discussion, as the union’s member on that adjudication committee is only an observer.
The newly elected Labour-Management Committee will take over for the April meeting and continue chasing down these threads.