Mutual Agreement information
Hello Faculty Colleagues,
In these difficult times, many of us are being requested to do work outside the bounds of the Collective Agreement. Please remember that requests from SAIT management to teach in the evening (after 6pm), to teach on weekends, to teach more than 4 hours in a row or more than 6 hours in a day, or to teach overload (more hours than your CCH designation) require that you voluntarily agree to this. SAFA recognizes that work/life balance is important, and we want to allow members the flexibility to choose the work hours that best suit them. However, SAFA also believes this process needs to be voluntary, transparent, and clearly documented.
To this end, SAIT and SAFA are working on a formal ‘Mutual Agreement’ form that should be released soon. If you are asked by your Academic Chair to accept a workload or teaching time that is outside of the Collective Agreement, SAFA strongly advises you to wait to sign off on any request until the new Mutual Agreement form has been released for use.
Please remember that it is entirely your decision to agree to work outside of the Collective Agreement, so please click “agree” only if you are willing to do this work. If the request from SAIT management (your Academic Chair or Dean) is something you do not wish to do, there is no penalty if you select “do not agree” on the Mutual Agreement form. There can be no backlash from SAIT, no action taken against you, and you do not need to justify your choice if you select “do not agree”.
Currently these work requests are COVID based, however, this issue has been ongoing for years in different schools with early start classes, classes in the evening, and other “special circumstances”. While the ‘mutual agreement’ requirement has always been in place, in the past it was done on a verbal or casual basis, with an expectation from management for instructors to just ‘accept’ that some roles teach outside of the boundaries established by the negotiated Collective Agreement. While there may be a short term need to deliver face to face classes outside of the normal workday during the Pandemic, it’s very important that this does not become the “new normal” going forward which would undermine our ability to negotiate better conditions at the bargaining table. The new Mutual Agreement form will create better documentation of this process by clearly communicating the parameters of the request to all parties impacted (SAIT, SAFA, Dean, and Instructor). This will allow SAFA to closely track the requests to make sure they are implemented appropriately.
Again, when the new form is approved for use, SAFA will communicate this to our membership quickly. Please watch for an email with additional information.
In solidarity