Due to the success of the Member Questions of the Week feature in the FSA E-Bulletin, we’re creating a repository of those questions that can be accessed here or by searching the #Questions of the Week tag on our website. You can email your Question of the Week questions to Member Engagement Officer Matt Greaves or the FSA inbox.

2023/24

June 2024 (Commemorations, Article 14, gender)
May 2024 (Posting pay scales, aggressive managers, vacancy type)
April 2024 (Protected speech, memags)
March 2024 (Overtime, spring break, new members)
February 2024 (PD, Decision Review Board, pensionable earnings, FTE reductions)
January 2024 (Vacation days, Article 19 investigations, snow days, and solidarity)
December 2023 (Union dues, buying union, and seniority)
November 2023 (Warning letters, overtime, 10.3 PD, and tuition waivers)
October 2023 (Pay scales, staff to management ratios, and retro pay)
September 2023 (Pay scales, No benefits backdating, and organizing PTS)

Please reach out to us if you have questions about your Collective Agreement, a concern about potential violations of your rights, problems with your working conditions, or any question about the FSA.

If you have concerns about activities or incidents in your work area but aren’t sure if you’re ready to contact the FSA, we have developed a form for you to use to keep a report. Tracking your concerns using the form will help the FSA labour-relations team provide support if/when you bring a concern to us.

All communications with the FSA are confidential.

Welcome to the FSA! Our New Member Handbook provides valuable information as you begin work as a member of our Union.

In particular, new members should know that they can challenge their placement on the salary scale within six (6) months of appointment. See our Fall 2022 issue of the BCITFSA Voice newsletter (pp. 10-11) for more.

Departments are defined in Article 1.8.5.1 and generally listed in Appendix III of the Collective Agreement. Each reference to “Department” in the Collective Agreement means: “the Employees and the related Manager.” The “employees” refers to Institute workers who are FSA members but not those represented by BCGEU units at BCIT. Each FSA member of the Department has the authority to participate in deliberations and decisions with a single voice and single vote. If the subject is one the Department has the right to decide, it’s a single vote for each FSA-represented employee and a single vote for their related manager. If the subject is one the Department has the right to be consulted on, then there must be opportunity for each FSA member to voice their opinion and there must also be a serious exchange of information or ideas before a decision is made. This is important because the Collective Agreement assigns dozens of rights and responsibilities to the Department.

The Collective Agreement (Articles 1.4.3-1.4.6) allows each Department some flexibility to develop their workloading process. There are guiding principles to ensure fair and equitable distribution of the work (Articles 1.4.3–1.4.6 & 8.8.1) and consultation (Article 1.8.4) within the Department, but the details of the process are left to Department members and the related Manager. Some Departments may choose to partially delegate the authority to a Departmental Workloading Committee, which may be done by specific motion at a Departmental Meeting (Article 14.4). This Committee receives requests from Department members regarding their workload preferences and drafts a Departmental plan based on those requests to bring back to the Department. The Department members must then review and approve that plan prior to its implementation. A Department-approved appeal process should be in place to process any appeals of Departmental decisions (Articles 14.4-14.5; 8.8.3; 8.9.1).

Articles 8.8 and 8.9 (for instructional and non-instructional staff respectively) provide three levels of dispute resolution when disagreements concerning workload arise. The Workload Dispute Process gives members the opportunity to challenge workloads that are unfair, inequitable, or unreasonable, whereas the grievance process is used for issues like excess contact hours or overtime. Please contact the FSA for guidance in workload disputes and to keep us informed regarding workload issues in your department.

Visit the Benefits section of BCIT’s website and scroll down to the relevant FSA hyperlink. You may also contact BCIT Human Resources. If you have questions or concerns left unanswered by HR, contact the FSA by email or call us at 604-432-8695.

The FSA’s Collective Agreement with the employer includes approximately 20 different types of leave provisions. These leaves are wide-ranging, and include absences for circumstances such as bereavement, participating in election to public office, maternity and parenting, professional development, and sick leave.

Some of the more common leaves that the FSA is asked about are:

(a) Maternity, Parental, and Adoption Leave (Article 9.6)

(b) General Purpose Leave Without Pay (Article 9.7)

(b) Professional Development Leave (Article 10.5)

(d) Development Leave, Short-Term – Technical Staff, Specialized Faculty, and Assistant Instructors (Article 10.6)

(e) Professional Development Leave Without Pay (Article 10.7)

There are various eligibility criteria to be satisfied for these different leaves, as well as limits on how much leave time an employee can take.

If you have any questions that are not answered by reading the respective Collective Agreement provisions, or if you are experiencing difficulty in accessing your rights to a leave, contact the FSA.

Article 8.6.1of the Collective Agreement provides Teaching Faculty (not Specialized Faculty, Assistant Instructors, or Instructors working in PTS) one month “…free of teaching and student evaluation (examination, marking and marks review) duties.” Subject to the duties assigned to you by your Department, you are not required to be in attendance at the Institute during your MFOT. If you are not on campus during this month, you are considered “on-duty, off campus.” The Collective Agreement does not list any specific activities or deliverables for the MFOT. Responsibility for assigning duties to be undertaken during this month resides with the members of your Department.

While many Faculty use all or part of June as their MFOT, there is nothing in the Collective Agreement that requires your MFOT be taken in June. Subject to the requirements of your Department, the MFOT may also be scheduled in segments rather than continuously. We are aware of some Faculty, for example, who spread their month over the entire summer, while others take half of their MFOT in June and the other half in August. MFOT does not count against other breaks, such as vacation or the Christmas break period.

For more information on seniority, see this short piece by Senior Labour Relations Representative George Talbott.

There is so much information on this topic that we have a separate FAQ on Overtime & Compensation. We also encourage you to reach out to the FSA directly if you think you’re working overtime and/or you’ve been directed to work overtime.

There are two types of professional development allowances: (1) the Article 10.3 Professional Development Expenses Fund, Program-Administered funding; and (2) an annual allotment of $2,400 for eligible full time Faculty employees.

Article 10.3 professional development funding is an annual allotment provided to eligible employees on April 1st of each calendar year. This is more commonly referred to as the “Pooled PD fund”. The general purpose of the fund is “to promote leadership in technological education through funding of relevant professional development activities and/or the purchase of equipment or services which maintain currency, flexibility, and professional competence of employees or augment the professional development of the individual employee” (Article 10.3.2). Refer to Memorandum of Agreement 22FSA01, Guide to Article 10.3 Professional Development Expenses Fund, for further information about the purpose and use of Article 10.3 funds.

An annual allotment of $2,400 in PD funding is available to Faculty employees after they have been at step 15 of the faculty salary scale for the equivalent of at least one annual workload year. This funding is paid via payroll, spread over the year, and subject to taxes. There are no reporting requirements or restrictions on the use of these funds.

FSA members planning to retire should visit the employer’s Retiring from BCIT webpage. You should be able to find all the resources and information you need there. BCIT HR also hosts regular pension seminars in conjunction with the Pension Corp.

Regular Employees please see Article 9.1.1 of the Collective Agreement, which outlines Pre-Retirement Leave, as well as Article 17.1, which concerns the schedule for providing the employer your notice of retirement.

If you have any concerns after working through that information and discussing it with BCIT HR, you can contact us directly.

All FSA employees have the right to carryover up to ten (10) days of vacation leave for use in a subsequent year, pursuant to Article 9.2.7.1 of the Collective Agreement. Under Article 9.2.7.4, an employee also has the right to apply for permission to reschedule or to carryover additional vacation leave, as long as the total vacation entitlement in any one (1) year does not exceed 58 days. See Article 9.2.7.2 for the exception to this rule.

In addition to the carryover limits described above, if an employee finds they are unable to take their scheduled vacation total in a calendar year, and they are authorized to forego the scheduled vacation leave, they may apply for permission to carry over the additional vacation leave (Article 9.2.7.6). These excess vacation days will be paid out via a lump sum by the second pay period in February of the subsequent calendar year.

Winter Break is the period between terms where attendance for work on campus is not required, similar to being on-call in other workplaces. It is not considered vacation, and employees must be available for remote work, or to attend on campus should a need arise. Each Department plans for coverage with consideration to services required, vacations booked, and fair treatment of all in the Department.

For instructional employees, Winter Break is the period after marks review and before commencement of the next term.

Winter Break for non-instructional employees is guided by this letter of understanding. Highlights include five (5) consecutive days of Winter Break, with a plan in place for coverage by November 1 of the anticipating year. If 5 consecutive days are not possible, then days are added preceding the period to make a total of 5 consecutive days. For this purpose, statutory and general holidays are not considered workdays.