Negotiations
Joint University/Association Committee: JUAC has been meeting monthly to discuss and attempt to resolve such matters of mutual concern as may arise. These matters may include updates to legislation, flexible working conditions, and other items that can affect APSA members’ terms and conditions of employment and work life at SFU.
Joint Compensation Review Committee: In the 2015 round of negotiations, Colin Taylor arbitrated an award for APSA. The committee works together on market comparisons, salary, and other total compensation pieces as mandated by the award. The arbitrator has not made a decision in three years and has recently recused himself. The University has decided that this committee no longer needs to meet, and there has been no agreement on recommendations. APSA’s position is that there is still work to complete, and we are doing further research into our options.
Salary and Benefits Committee: APSA is currently interviewing potential committee members and will be forming the committee soon. APSA anticipates bargaining to begin sometime in the late summer of 2025.
Grievances
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.
APSA advocates have several ongoing grievances and investigations regarding accommodations, return to work, hours of work, and bullying and harassment. Due to confidentiality issues, we can’t provide any details. Please see this infographic on the Life of a Grievance to learn more about how the grievance process works.
Meetings with Senior Leadership
APSA has continued to meet with Senior Leadership on various topics, including discrepancies with Hybrid Work and has requested the SFU Q3 financials from the University.
SFU Budget
On April 16, the University sent a message to all staff on its financial challenges and presented its forecasted balanced budget for 2024-2025 in its 2024–25 Budget Book. SFU has released its actuals for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which we include here.
Andrew Boden has written about the budget issues and the concerns surrounding the 2023-2024 SFU Budget.
We are aware that Student Services has posted three senior APEX positions. We have written to Student Services’ leadership highlighting the poor optics of hiring these positions so soon after the job cuts of so many APSA positions in Student Services due to budget issues. We will continue to press this issue.
In discussions with SFU senior administration on December 2, 2024, we learned that the University remains very concerned about the Federal government’s changes to the cap on study permits and their impact on SFU’s international tuition revenue, among other revenue streams. The administration continues to lobby the Federal government and the new NDP government in B.C. to mitigate the effects on SFU and the post-secondary sector in general. Budgets are expected to continue in 2025-2026.
On January 23, 2025, the SFU Provost Office announced that it would be closing the Vancity Office of Community Engagement and SFU’s Office of Community Engagement. This resulted in several APSA position eliminations and CUPE layoffs. SFU cited budget issues as the reason for closing these offices. APSA is investigating this further.
APSA continues to receive position eliminations on a department-by-department basis with notification from HR.