SAFA Membership Update: September 19
Welcome Back to School and to your Collective Agreement
Happy September – Welcome back to all SAFA members, and a very special welcome to all new SAFA members.
While this is a busy time of year for staff and students alike, I wanted to remind SAFA members to take some time to review your SAFA/SAIT Collective Agreement. This is important for two reasons. First, your CA contains the terms of reference that guide your working conditions. Second, the CA expires June 30, 2024, and knowing the agreement will help you recognise areas for improvement for the forthcoming collective bargaining.
As per the Post-secondary Learning Act, academic staff are exempt from Alberta Employment Standards. As such, your collective agreement is the most important document establishing agreed-to working conditions and rights.
Some of these important working conditions include hours of work (Section 31) and workload (Section 36). Faculty members’ normal hours of work should not exceed 37.5 hours per week, while Librarians and Counsellors should not exceed 36.25 hours. There are also overtime and overload provisions. Class Contact Hours (CCH) for faculty are also defined for each school in Section 36 Workload, as are the maximum number of classroom hours permitted on any given day—six hours in any given day or four consecutive hours in any given day.
Your CA also establishes your annual vacation leave, statutory holidays, and Christmas vacation. There are also other special leaves available to members, such as bereavement. To protect your salary while sick or injured, sick leave and short and long-term disability are also defined.
Should any disciplinary action occur, the CA also establishes the necessity for progressive discipline, as well as a grievance process should there be a contravention of the CA. Another great reason to know your CA – recognising that your rights have been violated.
While the marathon bargaining of the last round was effective in establishing current working conditions, and this round of bargaining will largely be about improving wages, there’s always room for improvement in language or net-new additions. Knowing your collective agreement will provide you with understanding that there is a deficiency or an opportunity to improve an article in the CA, and the opportunity to share suggestions for improvement is always available – email [email protected] with your comments.
More formally, this fall SAFA will be conducting surveys asking members for their priorities and suggestions, in preparation for the start of collective bargaining in the winter semester.
Again, welcome back everyone. I hope to meet many of you this semester—be it a casual visit or something more formal. As always, feel free to contact myself or any of the SAFA executives with any questions or concerns.
Craig Coolahan
Labour Relations Officer – SAFA
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Volunteer Needed for HS&E Council SAFA is seeking a volunteer to serve on the SAIT Health, Safety, & Environment (HS&E) Council, which supports SAIT’s Occupational HS&E program. The volunteer will join two other SAFA members on the committee for the remainder of a term ending on June 30th, 2024. Please review the attached committee terms of reference for more information. To apply for the position, submit your name to [email protected] by Tuesday, September 26th.