Fwd: Bargaining Update 2012-11-30; Negotiations end without agreement on monetary proposals; off to arbitration.

[George Kirczenow <kirczeno@sfu.ca>]

Can anyone explain why increasing the health benefits deductible "from the current $25/family to $125/family
in exchange for the provision of a drug card (no more filling out those forms to get reimbursement) 
and coverage of contraceptives" is supposed to be a good thing? Are we getting good value
for the $100 per year that we are giving up?

Begin forwarded message:

> From: carl schwarz <cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca>
> Subject: Bargaining Update 2012-11-30; Negotiations end without agreement on monetary proposals; off to arbitration.
> Date: December 1, 2012 10:02:59 PM PST
> To: sfufa-a-z@sfu.ca
> 
> Bargaining Update 2012-12-01
> 
> Negotiations end without agreement on monetary proposals; off to arbitration.
> 
> SFUFA and the Administration held our last negotiation session on
> 2012-11-30 but we
> failed to come to an agreement on monetary items. Our bargaining
> bulletins have clearly shown the need for a fix to our salary scales.
> We were unable to come to an agreement with the Administration who
> indicated that they were constrained by PSEC (the Public Sector
> Employers Council) guidelines.
> 
> Consequently, the negotiating team felt that we had no choice but to
> go to arbitration. As a matter of principle, Arbitrators are NOT tied
> by governmental guidelines that not legislated.
> 
> The arbitration process in our Framework Agreement is final offer
> selection (FOS). In this mode, both parties put forward their proposal
> and the arbitrator must select one proposal or the other in its
> entirety and both parties must accept it. This differs substantially
> from interest arbitration (IA) where the Arbitrator can pick and choose
> between items on the two proposals or even come up with a different
> proposal from those submitted. In final offer selection (our method),
> it is generally recommended that the issues be few in number and
> tightly focused.
> 
> Consequently, the Administration and SFUFA have agreed on a number of
> items below that will form part of both party's final offer to focus the
> difference in our respective proposals.
> 
> (a) Agreement in principle of a new rank of Teaching Professor and
> Professor of Professional Practise.
> 
> The rank of Teaching Professor will provide a further career path for
> our teaching appointments and generally promotion to this new rank
> will require demonstration of scholarship in pedagogy. UBC and UVic
> already have this new rank with similar promotion criteria. Our
> existing policy A30.03 Section B.3
> http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/academic/a30-03.html already has a
> similar career path for research faculty.
> 
> The rank of Professor of Professional Practise will be modelled on our
> existing Clinical Professor rank (Policy A12.13,
> http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/academic/a12-13.html) where
> external agencies can fund faculty here at SFU. No SFU money will be
> involved. The existing cap of no more than 5% of the both ranks  of
> our complement that is in the current policy will remain.
> 
> SFUFA and the Admin will strike a committee to make the necessary
> changes to our policies in time for September 2013.
> 
> 
> (b) Agreement to examine the need for an across the board salary
> adjustments for Librarians under Section 9 of our salary policy
> (A20.01 http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/academic/a20-01.html). A
> joint committee will be struck and report back with implementation by
> 1 Sept 2013.
> 
> By using the features of the existing policy A20.01, some of the constraints
> imposed by PSEC are not applicable.
> 
> 
> (c) We were unable to come to agreement on benefit changes other than
> increasing our deductible from the current $25/family to $125/family
> in exchange for the provision of a drug card (no more filling out
> those forms to get reimbursement) and coverage of contraceptives. We
> hope these changes will take place 1 January 2013.
> 
> Notice that the deductible is on a PER YEAR BASIS and not on an
> prescription basis. Under the new agreement, a member (and family)
> would have to incur $125 of expenses in a calendar year before being
> reimbursed for subsequent expenses.
> 
> SFUFA will be carefully reviewing our remaining proposals for changes
> to our benefits
> to see if these are suitable under our final offer selection arbitration.
> 
> 
> 
> So what happens next...
> 
> Both parties will prepare their arbitration briefs and will exchange
> them between ourselves and send them to our Arbitrator (Colin Taylor)
> on 21 December. Arbitrator Taylor is also the arbitrator for UBC and
> UVic who also currently are at an impasse and also headed for arbitration.
> 
> The earliest date for our arbitration hearing will likely be
> mid-February. At anytime up just before the final ruling, both parties
> can still negotiate and come to an agreement. SFUFA is ready at any
> time to resume negotiations if the Administration is permitted by PSEC
> to address our concerns.
> 
> I would like to personally thank the members of our negotiation team (
> David Broun (Physics), Maureen Fizzell (Business) and Brian Green
> (SFUFA))  the members of the Bargaining Advisory Committee (too
> numerous to list) and the SFUFA Executive for their work and advice
> during the bargaining rounds. Not everyone is off the hook quite yet,
> as our team will be putting together our Arbitration Brief in the next
> three weeks!
> 
> Believe it not, the whole process will start up again next September
> as the decision from the Arbitrator will run from 2012-07-01 to
> 2014-06-30. We are essentially in perpetual bargaining mode!
> 
> If you have any questions about the negotiations, please contact me
> (cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca). I can also come to talk to groups (e.g. Departments)
> as needed.
> 
> 
> Carl Schwarz
> cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca