Bargaining Update #1

Bargaining has commenced! Your AUPE Bargaining Committee and Negotiator met with the NAIT Bargaining Team in person on July 8th and 9th. The first day was introductions of the members of the teams and a discussion around how both sides see bargaining progressing and what would be said in communications.

Once those brief discussions were over AUPE presented our full in going proposal package (click here). This ingoing proposal is based on the survey results of which here are the highlights:

Members identified the following priorities for this round of collective bargaining: 

  1. Pay Increases 

  1. Benefits  

  1. Job Security 

  1. Staffing Level/Working Short 

  1. Mental Health Supports 

Compensation:  

Members are seeking a 3-year deal, with a 7% pay increase in each year of the new agreement and the addition of a COLA provision to address rising inflation and cost living. Our ingoing proposal in year 1 was increased to 13% to match the rest of the post secondary sector and their ingoing proposals.

Members indicated that being fairly compensated for work performed is important to them. The current provisions in the Collective Agreement do not address the ever-growing workloads in many departments that have been eroded though position abolishment and attrition over the years. Members are done “doing more with less” and want to be compensated for the work they do for NAIT. 

Benefits  

There is an overwhelming consensus to fight for improvement to the current Dental and Health Benefit Plan and to increase the amount of the Health Spending Account during this round of collective bargaining.  

Typically, improvements to the Benefit Plan will result in an additional cost to members as well as to the Employer, but most members are not willing to pay more for benefit improvements. This means that we will be requesting costing from the Employer to better understand the impact of any benefit improvements. We will also be looking at other ways to offset these costs, like changing the cost share ratio in this round of collective bargaining.  

Cafeteria Style Benefits  

NAIT has been testing the idea of Cafeteria style benefits with staff. Members are apprehensive about this change and want more information before they are willing to entertain any changes in how benefits are provided at NAIT.  

Should NAIT introduce this type of change at the bargaining table we will be asking for: 

  • Details surrounding the specific coverage options. 

  • Information on how this style of benefits would be administered including: 

  • frequency in which changes to the benefit coverage can occur. 

  • Are these benefit options responsive to unforeseen or significant life events.  

  • Are there any upfront costs to members. 

Before making any decisions on how to proceed we will be seeking further direction and sharing any information we receive from NAIT with the membership. 

Special Leave and Vacation 

Members want to ensure that Special Leave provisions are accessible to all members and provide more flexibility for individual workers. We will look to increase the entitlements and remove existing barriers in this Article. 

Members indicated throughout the survey that lack of coverage while on leave not only acts as a deterrent and prevents them from booking time off, and it also has a negative impact on workloads and mental health. In this round of bargaining will introduce language to address these concerns.  

Job Security – Position Abolishment and Lay-offs 

Members are concerned about position abolishment, specifically in these three areas: 

  • NAIT is not doing enough to keep staff when their position is abolished. 

  • NAIT will abolish positions only to reinstate similar or the same position within a year of the abolishment, this is seen as a tactic to eliminate more senior workers to save money and/or to target specific individuals. 

  • The elimination of positions results in increased workload for remaining staff. Many times, the work still exists within the bargaining unit and is absorbed by existing AUPE positions without any increase to compensation. 

Members are concerns about potential lay-offs should NASA take strike action.  

Members indicated that having better notice periods and higher severance in both these articles would be beneficial.  

Workload Issues and Re-classifications 

Members expressed that the following factors impact their workloads:  

  • Lack of proper coverage for leaves 

  • Chronic short staffing in key areas (ex: front line services, administration roles) 

  • Leaving vacant FTE vacant for too long. 

  • Staffing needs are not being properly factored into NAIT initiatives that, once implemented, will increase the workload of current staff. 

While members want the root causes for workload increases to be addressed, they also want to be properly compensated for the work they are getting asked to do. In this round of bargaining, we will look at: 

  • Job Descriptions that are easily accessible to members, and that are updated regularly to ensure they are reflective of all the work being performed as well as the volume of work being performed by staff. 

  • Having a re-classification system that is more accessible to members.  

  • Having a more robust and responsive Workload Review Process. 

Mental Health Supports  

Members acknowledged that mental health supports need to be reviewed and be improved during this round of collective bargaining. Suggested improvements include: 

  • Increasing the amount of Wellness Days. 

  • Creating a Psychological Health and Safety Committee – this will provide an avenue by-which AUPE members and NAIT can do an internal review of Employer training, practices/polices, initiatives to better support psychological health in the workplace. Many suggestions in the survey were related to in-house counselling, initiatives that would improve workplace culture, and improvements to the current EFAP, but these are not typically negotiated in the Collective Agreement. Having a Psychological Health and Safety Committee can provide workers with more input into these types of solutions.  

  • Improve benefits surrounding therapy/counselling to allow for a wider range of mental health supports for members. This would involve not just increasing the amount of the annual benefit, but also expanding the services covered by the benefit plan to include practitioners like clinical counsellors, family counsellors, and social workers. 

  • Addressing ongoing workload concerns as they contribute to an inability to take earned time off, and increases the frequency of absenteeism due to illness, all of which have a great impact on the mental health of workers.  

Benefits for Temporary and Casual Employees  

Members feel that NAIT relies on temporary and casual staff to contain costs. While funding models and the seasonality of work may justify keeping people in these types of positions, these workers still deserve more stability and protection within the CBA. In this round of collective bargaining, we will look at expanding the rights of these workers in areas such as benefits, access to paid leaves, and expanding notice periods and severance when the employment relationship is severed.  

We are also sharing a copy of the ingoing proposals we received from NAIT (click here). We have advised them that to keep the process open and transparent we would be sending these to you. After this though the only documents we will send out will be the signed off articles as we complete them. We will not be sharing any counterproposals or discussions at the table as this puts a chill on the bargaining process.

Both negotiating committees put their time and focus into going through the proposal package over the first 2 days of bargaining. We did meet again on day 2 to ask questions and points of clarification regarding the proposed changes. Your AUPE Bargaining Committee got right down to work and started drafting counter proposals to NAIT and have another day scheduled before the next meeting dates to have some solid counterproposals prepared.

Both sides have already agreed on 16 articles in principle as both sides proposed the language to remain current. We will share these with you once we have the signed sheets at the next meeting.

Our next scheduled dates for bargaining are September 5 & 6.

In Solidarity your AUPE Local 038 Bargaining Committee,

Michael Johnson

Ray Walmsley

Aline Robertson

Roxy Sidorchuk

Lindsey Van Sloten

Oleksandr Sukhorukov

Shahveer Ratnagar

Andrea Klymchuk

Emily Devereux