Negotiations
Compensation Negotiations Payouts: SFU LR has informed APSA that the one-time supplement for temporary APSA employees should be available in accounts to ensure ample time to use the funds before the end of the year, as temporary employees have no carry-over provision.
Continuing APSA employees will see the one-time PD supplement loaded on January 1, along with your yearly amount, subject to carry-over caps. However, continuing members will be able to receive reimbursement for expenses as of September 5, 2023.
Basic Agreement Bargaining: APSA and SFU are in the process of renegotiating the Basic Agreement. After a request by SFU to delay bargaining the Basic Agreement into the spring, we are working on new bargaining dates.
APSA has filed two grievances based on article 9.2 of our Basic Agreement. These grievances are for the professional development fund reimbursement payout for temporary members from our last round of bargaining and the University's aggregation of sick leave for concurrent illnesses. We are working to resolve these disputes with SFU.
Joint Compensation Review Committee: APSA received an arbitrated award in the 2015 round of negotiations from Colin Taylor. The committee is working together on items such as market comparisons, salary and other total compensation pieces as mandated by the award. We will have further, substantive updates on this ongoing issue as soon as possible.
APSA advocates have several ongoing grievances and investigations on accommodations, return to work and hours of work. We can't give any details due to confidentiality issues. Please see this infographic on the Life of a Grievance to learn more about how the grievance process works.
Hiring Freeze
APSA has learned of a communication sent on behalf of Martin Pochurko, VP Finance, and Administration and Dilson Rassier, Provost and VP Academic, to all VPs and deans at Simon Fraser University. This communication states that:
"To support cost containment measures, we are instituting a hiring freeze for all continuing and temporary staff positions, effective immediately. To prioritize the academic mission, faculty positions are not included in this freeze."
The freeze will be reviewed in March 2024 with the hope that the freeze will reduce expenses as groups work to improve operational efficiencies. There may be additional budgetary constraints in the future. APSA has raised and will continue to raise our concerns to the senior administration, regarding hiring freeze issues and its affects on our members.
Pension
The University has given APSA, CUPE and PolyParty new administrative plan text to review, which appears to include only minor edits to the text and incorporates no substantive changes. The three employee groups are hoping to meet and plan how to address these changes, given the University's imposed deadline of November 17, 2023.