Dear faculty,
At the last two meetings of the Regroupement cégep, on September 2nd and 17th, we received updates about the state of collective agreement negotiations. There remain outstanding issues at the sectoral table that are impeding the signing of an agreement in principle with our employers, namely:
- Ensuring that the revised funding for Nursing be applied retroactively to 2020 (our employer wants it to only apply starting from the actual signing of the collective agreement);
- Ensuring that a certain proportion of negotiated funding for students with disabilities in the classroom go into Volets 1 and 2 and allow for the creation of posts;
- Ensuring that distance learning initiatives be enshrined in an annex of the collective agreement (7-3) which states that these must be negotiated between the employer and the union, so that local administrations don’t unilaterally apply distance learning initiatives.
In order to try and unblock the blockage, FNEEQ-CSN has applied for mediation, which is a tool in the toolbox of labour negotiations to move things forward. This appears to have put some pressure on our employers for about a week, but they are still not making the changes that we need them to make. We will therefore be going to mediation in the coming weeks to try and settle.
In the meantime, as a federation we will need to weigh the possibilities of different kinds of mobilization and pressure tactics to try and push things forward. We will keep members of all these developments as we hear of them. Please also see the latest Info-négo from CSN, in English (here) and French (here).
In Solidarity,
The JACFA Executive