These were identified as a priority item by a large number of members
in our survey that we conducted at the start of negotiations when we
started the whole process.
Carl.
On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 3:58 PM, George Kirczenow <kirczeno@sfu.ca> wrote:
> 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
>