CCFA Members Have Ratified Our 2022-2025 Collective Agreement

Congratulations, we have ratified the 2022-2025 Collective Agreement!  The vote was 98% in favour of ratification with 183 members voting.  During the meeting we recorded over 230 unique users logging on (close to a third of members).  Kelly Pitman and the entire Bargaining Committee worked all through the Summer to bring members this deal and I want to thank them and everyone who came, who made this victory possible.  Even if you couldn’t stay for the whole time, it was incredible to have to scroll through so many member names and faces and see so much engagement!  If you weren’t able to make it to the meeting are welcome to contact me or ac.ytlucafnusomac@afcc to book a time to review the meeting slides or stop by Young 222 to read the Memorandum of Settlement.

What happens next, you ask? 

• The Camosun College Board of Governors and the Public Service Employers Association Directors must also ratify it for it to come into effect. 
• As soon as they’ve ratified, we’ll announce the effective dates and details for the new benefits and together with the College work on distributing the resources you’ll need to take advantage of your new benefits. 
• We’ll inform everyone of the process for members who are no longer employed at the college to apply for any back pay they are entitled to.  I’ve already been getting emails from former members, so GREAT JOB getting the word out there already.  However, until the application form has been created, the best way for you to help those folks will be to have them fill out the CCFA Member Details Form on our website.  We will email EVERYONE on that list when the back pay application instructions are available.
• We’ll begin coordinating with the College to communicate when members can expect their salary increases to take effect and when to expect their back pay lump sums.
• We’ll also begin discussions about formatting and publishing the finalized Collective Agreement for everyone to be able to read and refer to it in detail.  
• We’ll be fielding many new questions that arise as we implement this new agreement.  During the meeting tonight, we heard some questions that we didn’t immediately have answers for, we’re looking into those and will report back.  These won’t be the only ones that arise and we want to you reach out anytime you have questions related to the new agreement.  You can email me, ac.ytlucafnusomac@gniniagrab or ac.ytlucafnusomac@riahccmc to reach your released executives.  Join our Discord chat server to have private conversations about working conditions outside the employer’s network (though there’s more silliness & meme sharing than anything else, tbh.)
• We’ll begin educating members on their new rights and how to understand the ones that have changed by hosting infosessions in the coming months.  There will be infosessions on how to Check your Cheque & Pension, the new retrospective tests for regularization, and so much more!  Did you know that our Execs will come to your Department meetings?  Contact me to make arrangements for Zoom, IU or Lans department meetings.
• We’ll hold the employer to account if they don’t honour the terms of our Collective Agreement!  We’re always pursuing resolutions over Collective Agreement disputes, but over the coming months, we’ll depend on YOU to help us make sure that the employer applies the new and changed clauses as they were intended.  It will be more important than ever before to inform us of your issues, like if it’s taking you 30 minutes to find parking each day so we can deal with them swiftly!

I’m sure some of you are wondering… Who were the 2% that voted against ratification or why would someone have abstained?  I can’t tell you… the vote was anonymous; and I wouldn’t tell you even if I could.  What I can tell you is that, while this deal is WAY better than anything we’ve seen for a decade, it isn’t close to enough, nor is the “Shared Recovery Mandate” that the BC Government is so proud of, paying what workers in BC are worth (we are listed as having 847 members on the last line of page 3).  It doesn’t keep up with inflation, it doesn’t ensure that our most vulnerable Term Faculty members enjoy all the same rights, benefits, and protections as our Continuing faculty do. 

No one’s Collective Agreement in BC does that, yet, and none of us will be able to do that alone.   If you’re passionate about fighting for workers’ rights and furthering social justice there’s a place for you serving members in Union leadership.  You get out of your Union what you put into it. Now, more than ever we need to be “Working Together as One” and I can’t wait to waive OUR paddle high in victory!