Know Your Rights: 2025 Seniority List

Finally…

Hello members! The 2025 Seniority List is finally published on our website, and in time-honoured tradition, I’m going to recycle a post from last year to help you determine if your Seniority has been calculated correctly. You can download the 2025 Seniority List if you click here. It is also posted on the front page of our website and on the Camosun Intranet. If you’re a new or recently regularized member, or if you just need a refresher about what seniority is, read on:

What is Seniority?

Seniority is a system used in workplaces and organizations to rank employees by length of service. Only Continuing faculty members earn seniority. Term faculty members accumulate “service in the bargaining unit,” which is converted to seniority when they regularize. Seniority is often used as an objective measure to make employment-related decisions such as pay increases (steps), layoffs, and access to certain benefits.

In times of layoffs, seniority becomes a critical safeguard. It determines the order in which employees are retained or released, offering greater job security to long-serving members. The Collective Agreement explicitly states that seniority must be the primary consideration during workforce reductions, ensuring that decisions are based on clear, agreed-upon criteria rather than subjective judgment.

But that’s a huge problem when the list isn’t accurate!

Last year, we told you that we knew the Seniority List had errors. This year, we still don’t know if those calculation errors have been fixed! If you are part-time continuing AND took term top-up contracts, they may have been undercalculated. This is especially significant during labour adjustments (as we learned last year), so we are urging everyone to double-check. Continuing members who have always worked full-time aren’t likely to have these errors, and folx who are only taking term contracts calculate their service in the bargaining unit differently.

Here’s how Seniority should be calculated:

For Continuing Members:

Number of days employed (including all ULOA) multiplied by Full Time Equivalency (FTE, sometimes stated as a percentage) divided by the number of days per year. If you’ve worked at different percentages, you’d need to calculate those separately and then add them up. Here’s an example:

Continuing members can earn a maximum of 100% seniority each year.

For Term Members:

The formula for determining the amount of service in the bargaining unit (seniority credit) you should get for a single-term contract equals 1.2 multiplied by the number of weekdays during the contract multiplied by Full Time Equivalency (FTE) divided by 260.89. The multiplication factor of 1.2 is used because section 1.02 of the Collective Agreement accounts for vacation paid out in lieu. Here’s an example:

Term members can earn more than 100% service in the bargaining unit per year. Upon becoming a continuing member, all service in the bargaining unit is converted into seniority.

For Part-time Continuing Members Who Take Term Top-Up Contracts:

Hopefully, everything has been clear until now, even if the calculations can get complicated. Part-time continuing members should earn seniority according to BOTH calculations: their continuing percentage and the term contracts taken, up to a maximum of 100% seniority each year. But that’s not what they are doing… They are undervaluing the term top-up contracts of all part-time continuing faculty members – and if that amount could be the difference between who in a department would be laid off – I know we’d all prefer to get that right!

But…. most of us don’t math, right?

What you need is a calculation spreadsheet! Thanks to our Labour Relations Advisor, Dominique, all you have to do is enter the dates of your employment, your % FTE, and all your various contracts, and the spreadsheet will tell you what your accrued seniority should be. For many of us (like me), the difference is less than 0.15 – probably due to a rounding or annualization error that is easily fixed and, as I’m not currently a target of a labour adjustment, moot. However, if you are in an area that is targeted or may be subject to transfer/bumping 0.15 may be the difference between which member keeps their job and which one is laid off.

The seniority list is important because it ensures fairness and consistency within the organization. It serves as a reference point for various employment-related decisions that we hope we never have to consider, such as qualification tie-breakers and layoffs. Currently, there are just under 500 continuing faculty members on the list, and it is up to each of you to verify that your calculations are correct!

If you check your calculation and think your seniority isn’t accurate, or if your salary scale didn’t increase at least +1 step for each FTE year you’ve been employed above your initial placement at the College, we need to know and review it with you. Similarly, if you are up for a Term Contract in which service in the bargaining unit would be a deciding factor, we can help ensure that everyone in the department receives an accurate calculation before any assignments are finalized.

We continue to live in far too interesting times, but we are here to help. Please get in touch with me if you have questions about your seniority or step placement, or if you haven’t joined our Discord server, which is the best place for up-to-the-minute news and support.