Bargaining update: St. Jerome’s

Members of the St. Jerome’s University Full-Time Faculty Unit ratified their new three-year collective agreement in October, having won significant improvements on their priorities of compensation, workload, working conditions for non-tenure-stream faculty, faculty complement protections, and support for research and professional development.

On compensation, members maintained salary increase parity with faculty at the University of Waterloo. This means increases of 4.7% and 3.6% respectively in each of the first two years of the agreement, with the increase in the third year tied to the automatic scale reopener applicable to members of the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo (FAUW). Members also saw a 10% increase to their Progress Through the Ranks (PTR) increments (to $4,998 for 2024-25), a significant new investment in salaries that matches the “Outstanding Performance Fund” (OPF) available to FAUW members; as well as a one-time increase to base to reflect OPF in previous years. Librarian members saw their annual PTR increased to match other members.

Significant gains have also been made on workload, including: the introduction of a new course credit system that provides flexible redemption options (release, stipend, or research/PD grant); new automatic and application-based course credits for both funded and non-grant-based research activity; increased compensation for Chairs and Program Directors; more generous reduced workload and reduced workload to retirement provisions; and improved thresholds for guarantees of teaching/marking support.

In an important set of improvements to working conditions for Definite Term and Continuing Lecturers, these categories of employment have been converted to Teaching Stream ranks, to align with those at the University of Waterloo. The new Teaching Stream appointment will have ranks similar to tenure-stream faculty, and institutional parity in other ways. Teaching Stream faculty will receive supports for pedagogical development and research, as well as earned teaching relief that can be used toward course releases and sabbaticals. The creation of the Teaching Stream category will not affect tenure-stream complement, with the retention of a minimum tenure-stream complement and the establishment of a fixed tenure stream to teaching stream ratio.

Additional gains of note include improved intellectual property protections, and provisions for Association involvement in University responses to emergencies.