PD Expense Report Deadline: 31 October
October 31st is the deadline to submit your expense report for professional development activities that happened last year, 2018–2019.
Any report received after this date will not be reimbursed.
Insurance Update for 2020
The following changes will be applied to the insurance policy in January 2020:
- Cannabis has been approved for partial coverage for medical needs – see attached info-letter.
- As of January 2020 anyone who already has or will reach 3 years of seniority will be obliged to participate in our Long Term Disability (LTD) plan with La Capitale at the signing of their next contract.
- Premiums are going up 0.5% for medications, 2.5% for LTD, and they are going down for life insurance – see attached info-letter.
- Please ask for generic drugs in order to pay less.
- You can change your insurance coverage during the month of November. The College will send a reminder soon. You can increase your coverage or reduce it if you have had higher coverage for more than 3 years.
- The attached info-letter also has some advice regarding the prevention of identity theft.
VCTA Sustainability Efforts
On 10 May 2019, the VCTA General Assembly adopted the following motion (abridged):
“That the VCTA firmly stand behind the value of sustainability and urge the College to take a more proactive approach to promoting sustainability in College education and practice…”
In order to be consistent and coherent with this position, your VCTA Executive is currently reviewing all our activities to identify changes we can adopt in order to reduce our footprint and our impact on the environment. For example, those who were present at the Happy Hour noticed that we already decided to no longer use disposable dishes.
We feel that the climate crisis requires important changes in behaviour, and we wish to adopt a leadership position in that direction.
Financial Review Committee
It is important for us to form a Financial Review Committee to oversee the VCTA finances of the last 3 years. The financial reports for all 3 years have been completed.
If you are interested in participating in this important review process, please contact Sheree Sitahal in C101 or at vcta@vaniercollege.qc.ca.
Here is the mandate of this committee as described in our by-laws:
“VCTA By-laws – Article 30 – The Financial Review Committee
The VCTA Financial Review Committee is composed of three (3) non-Executive members of the VCTA who are appointed by the Association Council. The committee meets with the VCTA treasurer and/or the VCTA employee to review the revenues, expenditures, assets, and liabilities of the VCTA once each year. The Financial Review Committee makes a yearly report to the VCTA Executive, Association Council, and the General Assembly.”
Checking Your Seniority
We have now received the latest seniority list, you can verify that your seniority is correctly accounted by following these steps:
- Check your seniority on last November’s official list: 2018.
- Check your contracts for last year: 18-19
- For contracts in FTE, simply add the number to last year’s number.
- For hourly contracts, add them up and divide the total number of hours by 450, then add to last year’s number.
- If you had a conversion to fulltime simply add 1 to last year’s number.
- You cannot have more than 1 FTE increase in a year.
- Teachers using timesheets are a little more complicated – only actual hours worked count.
National Occupational Health and Safety Week: October 13–20, 2019
In education, health and safety initiatives at work have to take an important role in our syndical actions. Issues that are difficult to identify and to raise with our employers can limit our power to act. Still, syndical leadership is essential to bring prevention forward. Unions cannot take the place of employers, but we can show them how to act right away. Every person is affected, and we all win.
During this National Occupational Health and Safety Week, we wanted to bring some issues to your attention. Keep an eye out for the posters in staff lounges and the union office highlighting themes:
- working safely and having healthy children
- preventing falls
- identifying sexual harassment cases
- security
Association Council Vacant Positions
There are positions on the Association Council which need to be filled.
We need one representative from the Science and Technology Faculty.
And there are three vacant at large positions.
If you are interested in joining the Association Council, please contact us.
Please Bring Back Service Dishes
We are happy to lend dishes to our members. At this time, we are almost out because most of our dishes have been borrowed and have not been returned. If you have some bowls, baskets, plates, glasses, mugs or other dishes and cutlery that belong to the VCTA, please return them to the C101 office so other members can use them when they need.
Upcoming Meetings
October 24, 13h30 – Association Council – F216
November 7, 18h00 – General Assembly – F216
November 14, 13h30 – Association Council – F216
November 15, 13h00 – Academic Council – F216