VCTA News Bulletin No. 7
Jan. 20, 2010
On the Negotiation Front
SECTORIAL TABLE: OFFERS
FROM THE CPNC!
Exciting times are upon us. After the offers for the
central table, the CPNC (Comité patronal de
négociation des collèges) deposited the sectorial
offers for CEGEPS teachers in December 2009.
Since the offer at the Central Table is for a global
increase of 7% over 5 years, which has to cover all
new costs, the CNPC document mentions no new
resources for teaching. The whole theme of the
Teaching Profession Document, a document, written
by a parity committee of reps from our unions and
the CPNC, was about how our workload has
increased. Our Fneeq demands focused on this
increase and asked for new resources. You can
access our demands at www.thevcta.qc.ca.
The CPNC, however, sees our workload as having
“evolved” rather than increased and their offers
reflect this. There are no new resources mentioned
in their document, which is a rather vague list of
possible areas of negotiation.
There seems to be an emphasis throughout on
“accountability”, cutting down costs and “better
management”. For instance, they want to make
teachers more “accountable” both to the
administration and to coordinators, who would have
the power to supervise teachers. This is very
different from the present system in our
departments!
The employers’ side claims to want to negotiate in
good faith, but only time will tell if this is so. On Jan.
20 and 21, Vanier reps will attend a Regroupement
cegep to discuss negotiations. Locally, the best thing
we can do for a good collective agreement is to have
a mobilized membership.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL UNION!
For news on negotiations, go to
www.csn.qc.ca/web/secteurpublic/negofneeq
Insurance Changes
Members of the Fneeq insurance plan met in
November and made changes to the policy (see
Newsbulletin no.5). You can also find more
information at:
http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/fr/comites/assurances/Ris
tourne-printemps-2010.html .
The part about refund of the insurance surplus does
not concern us as we just joined Fneeq.
SUPPORT FOR HAITI
We will bring a donation request to the first GA
on February 10th. In the meantime, teachers are
encouraged to donate to Doctors Without
Borders, the Canadian Red Cross or a group of
their choice. The Canadian government will
match all funds given to recognized groups for
the Haitian earthquake relief until Feb. 12.
News From CRT
CRT stands for COMISSION DES RELATIONS DE
TRAVAIL. It is the local body where union officers and
the administration deal with local work-related issues.
Important news from the December 17th meeting:
Some bad news: the allocation figures given to us
reflect a DEFICIT of almost 4 FTE’s in our masse
salariale (budget for teaching, coordination, etc.). We
have asked for another CRT on Feb.11. Stay turned for
more news on this.
experience “flu-like symptoms”.
H1n1: The Vanier College policy deals with a number of
issues, but most importantly, the numbers of days a
teacher must stay home when s/he believes that s/he
may have the H1N1 virus. The absence period, set by
the Quebec public health officials is 5 working days, for
a total of 7 days away from the College. The
administration recognizes that “these days will
generally deplete most of the sick bank allowance of
any employee.”
g) the number of days set by the College after
agreement with the professor for an event of a force
majeure (disaster, fire, flood, etc.) that requires
him/her to be absent from work;
Our concern, which we brought up at the CRT, is that
there may be cases when a teacher feels ill for 2 days,
and feels well enough to go to work afterwards.
Staying home at that point would be to respect the
Compulsory Absence requirement of the College to
prevent transmission of the virus. We believe that the
additional days off should be considered “Special
Some good news: the CRT team has been able to gain Leave” with pay, articles 5-9.01 g and/or h of the
the right for substitute teachers in courses that are Collective Agreement.
once a week. Teachers will now be able to get paid
These clauses state:
substitution for the second half of the course.
h) the number of days set by the competent medical
authorities for a quarantine ordered by these
authorities.
The administration did not agree with our
interpretation. Even though the pandemic seems to be
The VCTA recognizes the importance of preventing the
over, we will continue to defend our position to the
spread of the virus and the need for a compulsory
administration. In the meantime, should you find
absence period for teachers who
yourself in such a situation, contact the VCTA
Executive.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Make sure that you attend the upcoming General Assembly on Thursday February 10th. Items to be
discussed include The Central Table and Sectorial offers. Furthermore, on Oct. 30th, FAC dissolved and
assets were distributed to the member unions. The VCTA’s share was $216 000. In addition, the VCTA
has had a dues holiday from FAC since July and a partial dues holiday from FNEEQ/CSN since Sept. 30th.
We will be discussing various options for the use of these funds at our next GA. Please join us for
supper at 5:30 PM in the staff cafeteria and in the Amphitheatre at 6:30 PM for the meeting. RSVP to
Susan Panneton at extension 7411.