The Vanier College Teachers’ Association
🎉 Welcome Back
We hope you all had an enjoyable summer and that your classes are off to a great start!
As always, we encourage you to visit us in C-101 if you have any questions regarding workloads, seniority and priority, insurance plans, retirement, scholarity, or anything else related to your work at Vanier.
Before making decisions like turning down work, we recommend discussing the implications with us. Our office hours are posted on the door and on our website at https://www.thevcta.qc.ca/. You can also reach us by phone at extension 7053 or by email at vcta@vaniercollege.qc.ca
As your union, we remain committed to advocating for your rights, supporting your professional needs, and fostering a strong, united community. To stay informed about negotiations and other important issues, keep an eye out for our News Bulletins, emails, and announcements for General Assemblies.
Wishing you all a fantastic semester ahead!
💰New Collective Agreement and Retro Pay
The new collective agreement (2023-2028) was signed this Summer, on June 9. The English version is not available yet, but the French version is, as well as a document highlighting the changes since the previous round. Both documents are posted on the VCTA website.
Related to this, we received our retroactive salary on the August 1st pay, covering the period since the end of last agreement. Based on a small sample of paystubs and individual situations, we checked whether the amounts calculated by the college were accurate. It looks like numbers add up within a few dollars, probably due to rounding off.
You can verify your own payment using the Excel tool, by setting the signature date to June 9, 2024, and inputting “40” days in the cell just below. This will set the number of days taken into account for the retro at:
- 260 days from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024,
- 66 days from April1, 2024 to July 1,2024,
- 14 days since July 1,2024.
Make sure to enter the correct pay echelons too. Finally, you will have to subtract an amount due to the strike days we had in 2023 (that is 8.5 days at the daily rate indicated for the April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 period). If you are having trouble double-checking, or if your situation requires other steps (ie involving conted rates, part-time work or unpaid leaves since April 2023), feel free to pass by the union office with your paystubs and we will try to do the verification with you.
The new agreement also included an extra one echelon-jump for all teachers above echelon 6 and not at the top of their scale yet, effective on July 1st 2024. We still need to check if it was applied in a timely fashion and across the board, please let us know if you haven’t noticed it in your most recent paystubs.
✒️ Negotiated Agreement for Law 14
An agreement was also reached concerning the implementation of Law 14 in English cegeps. After a lengthy negotiation between the CPNC (Comité Patronal de Négociation des Collèges – our employers) and FNEEQ (our teachers’ federation), we were able to establish guidelines which will hopefully help us navigate through the transition period. The signed agreement is a “lettre d’entente” that will remain part of the collective agreement until the end of 2027. The agreement is available on the union website. Even though several aspects of the implementation are dealt with locally, the agreement establishes the following:
- An increased hiring priority for non-tenured teachers losing their jobs due to the new grids and their impact on disciplines’ allocation, while applying for a job in another cegep where there would be a demand. It is better than nothing, but far from a guaranteed teaching load somewhere else in the reseau.
- It clearly states that distributing courses in French is a departmental responsibility, and gives guidelines to do so while respecting the language competencies of teachers.
- In the event that a teacher whose mastery of the French language for teaching purposes is insufficient to offer the courses contained in their load, they shall take advantage of a leave provided for in the collective agreement or one of the following options: a leave without pay for the portion of the load in French (similar to a voluntary working time reduction, even if it is requested past the usual deadline), or a leave with pay for professional development in French. For the latter, eligibility will require demonstrating some oral and written proficiency, submitting a francization plan by the end of which they expect to be able to teach in French, and providing a proof of enrolment in a recognized francization program. Priority will be given to short training plans in disciplines where there is an immediate need. A maximum of 0.5 FTE per teacher can be attributed, eventually spread over several semesters.
- It confirms that the same course given in French and English will count as two different preps.
- The college has a duty of consultation and transparency on how law 14 resources are spent, and yearly updates will be produced to follow the impacts of the new law.
- This agreement is valid until December 2027.
🗓️ 27 Pay Periods
Many non-permanent teachers have been surprised/disappointed to find that they have not received a pay on 15 August. The occurrence of this pay gap was not communicated adequately by the College, but it is a recurrent result of the way our pay periods are organized. Because the pay cycle is based on 26 periods which do not perfectly synchronise with the number of days in a calendar year, every 10 years or so, the calendar year gains an extra two weeks on our pay year, and therefore there is an extra “pay” Thursday.
The Collective Agreement [6-6.01] states that when such a situation occurs, the salary of fulltime permanent teachers is divided into 27 slightly smaller payments over the year, instead of the regular 26. Non permanent teachers however continue to receive 13 pays for each semester contract. This means that, on these years, there has to be a gap in their pay. This year, the College made that gap happen on the pay of 15 August.
Also, in order to align the payment of the salary with the contracts, the dates are shifted. That is why this year’s semester contracts officially started on 18 August, and they will end on 15 February, 2025. The number of days of availability, the amount of salary, and the cheques remain the same, it is just the dates that are shifted.
The days of availability given by teachers before the start of their contract will be transferred to February when there will be an extra pay after the end of the availability period.
📣 Call for Union Stewards
Based on a recommendation from the negotiation post-mortem sub-committee of the Association Council, we propose that each department designate a point person (a union steward) to facilitate communication during negotiations. This steward will serve as the VCTA’s contact between General Assemblies, sharing information from the executive with their department and reporting back to the executive.
While coordinators are a natural choice for this role, we understand they already have many responsibilities, so another member of the department may be a better fit. We believe that appointing union stewards will significantly enhance communication between the executive and our members.
If you would like to serve as a union steward for your department, please get in touch with us at vcta@vaniercollege.qc.ca. We look forward to hearing from you.
📣 Call for Volunteers – Association Council
We are currently seeking three (3) dedicated volunteers to join our Association Council. This is a valuable opportunity to contribute to the important work of representing our members and shaping our collective efforts.
Association Council is the deliberative body of the VCTA that makes decisions on how the union should run between General Assemblies makes recommendations to the General Assembly. It is composed of the Executive members and twelve other VCTA members (six at large and two from each of the three faculties) who are elected in April of each year, for a one year mandate.
Council members represent all teachers but bring the point of view and experience of their faculty to Council. The Association Council meets every two or three weeks (on Thursdays) during the semester and the agendas are sent out to the entire membership.
If you are interested in serving on the Council, please send us an email at vcta@vaniercollege.qc.ca
📅 Dates of Upcoming Meetings
- Academic Council (1:00 – 4:00; F-216)
- Friday, September 13
- Friday, October 18
- Friday, November 8 (placeholder in case of time-sensitive motions)
- Friday, December 13
- Association Council (1:30 – 4:00; room TBA)
- Thursday, August 29
- Thursday, September 12
- Thursday, October 3 (Insurance)
- Thursday, November 14
- Thursday, December 5
- CRT (2:00 – 4:00; room TBA)
- Thursday, September 19
- General Assembly (room TBA)
- Wednesday, September 18 (UB)
- Thursday, October 17 (5:30)
- Wednesday, November 20 (UB)
- Wednesday, December 18 (5:30) – Happy Hour