The Provincial Election
The Estates General for Higher Education
The provincial election is upon us and, as many of you know, the Estates General have been working for the past year to put higher education in the forefront. To bring you up-to-date on the latest action: a letter summarizing the solutions that were proposed last May was signed by various unions, including your VCTA Executive, and gathered by the Conseil Central who are forwarding it to the political parties. The major solutions were: 1) improve accessibility for students (e.g. of finances, physical disabilities, or adult work-life obligations); 2) raise public funding to adequate levels and change the funding formula to accord with the needs of the institutions (not PES by the number of students per week); 3) guarantee academic freedom in all higher education institutions; 4) address work instability by improved conditions and stop sub-contracting positions for employees in all sectors
- See the letter (in French) here attached.
CSN
Also, CSN has been working to bring union priorities to the candidates, from labour standards (e.g. minimum wage, medical leaves, pensions) to climate change initiatives. Your Executive will be taking part in their General Assembly Sept. 19 at 6:30 pm. You are welcome to review the CSN document “Clear Vision, Sharp Focus: On the Road to the Quebec Election” in the link below.
| GUARANTEE HIGH- QUALITY JOBS WITH DECENT WAGES
ON THE ROAD TO THE QUÉBEC ELECTION Production Confédération des syndicats nationaux January 2018 csn.qc.ca ENSURE UNIVERSAL, ACCESSIBLE QUALITY |
- Above all, get informed, keep education and climate in mind, and VOTE!
Professional Development: per diems
After your union representatives made a proposal last fall to the Administration for a more flexible per diem, in order to better reflect the realities of our teachers, the Administration agreed to look into changing the policy. The Board of Directors in June did pass a new Expense Report Policy and it did allow for a daily tally of the amounts allotted for meals for a grand total of $70 per day allowed. We hope this makes your professional development experience easier and more manageable.
- For the full Expense Report policy: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/bylaws-policies-procedures/files/2018/06/Expense-Report-Policy-1-1.pdf
- For other details concerning PD: http://www.thevcta.qc.ca/professional-development-pd/some-clarifications-on-process/
| SOME CLARIFICATIONS ON PROCESS | The VCTA – Vanier College …
Funding According to the Collective Agreement, article 7-1.01, the College receives 195$ from the government for every full-time professor or the equivalent. Currently Vanier has enjoyed a surplus, because not every teacher uses every year what is allotted. |
Donations
The Council of Canadians’ honorary chairperson, Maude Barlow, has solicited the VCTA for a donation. You may remember her speaking here at Vanier about water in 2013. We will bring this up at an upcoming General Assembly, but we wanted you to have time to get familiar with this organization beforehand.
- Check out their history and campaigns: https://canadians.org/about
| About Us | The Council of Canadians
canadians.org Founded in 1985, the Council of Canadians is Canada’s leading social action organization, mobilizing a network of 60 chapters across the country. Through our campaigns we advocate for clean water, fair trade, green energy, public health care, and a vibrant democracy. We educate and empower people to hold our governments and corporations accountable. |
Committee Teacher Representatives
We have almost filled the college committees that have teacher representatives and we would like to take a moment to thank this year’s volunteers for stepping up and working on behalf of all teachers!
- Brian Aboud, Colleen Ayoup, Andrew Blakeslee, Rita Bonar, Stephen Byron, Stephanie Belmer, Hugo Casanova, Cecilia Chi, Maria Chiras, Linda Chipp, Katherine Collin, Francine Cytrynbaum, Miles DeNora, Hode Erdogan, Helen Filippou, Lisa Fiorentino, Marie-Sophia Grabowiecka, Marika Hadzipetros, Amanda Horton, Maggie Kathwaroon, Eric Lamoureux, Karl Laroche, Colleen Leonard, Myriam Mansour, Bill Mitchell, Kelly Purdy, Marc-Andre Rene, Heather Roffey, Katie Rose, Avery Rueb, Bonnie Sonnenschien, Christian Stahn, Mohamed Tavakoli, Vanessa Vandergrift, Karen White, Shirley Zhu
Thank-you!