The King’s University College Faculty Association (KUCFA) ratified a new two-year agreement in September. Gains were made on all KUCFA’s goals related to equity, fair compensation, workload fairness, and meaningful collegial governance.
Equity gains were made for Indigenous faculty and retirees. Indigenous-identifying faculty will be evaluated according to criteria that recognizes Indigenous ways of knowing and Indigenous knowledge with respect to teaching, scholarship, service, and research. Retirees who had held a full-time position for at least five years at the rank of either Associate or Full Professor are now eligible for Professor Emeritus/Emerita Designation. Entitlements include continued access to the e-mail address they had prior to retirement and full library privileges.
On workload, members in their first year of appointment to a full-time tenure track position have a reduced teaching load of two full course equivalents (as opposed to 2.5 for other faculty). With respect to teaching mode of delivery, the collective agreement now has a provision that teaching duties will normally be performed in person. However, online or asynchronous delivery for program integrity can be requested by Schools and academic departments, subject to the Dean’s discretion. Limited-Term Appointments (LTAs) are now expected to engage in scholarly and professional activities.
On governance, KUCFA can now negotiate a new or amended policy or practice discussed at the Joint Consultative Committee where the policy is determined to affect the terms and conditions of employment of members, prior to implementation. Improvements to the grievance procedures involve ensuring that KUCFA has carriage of all grievances. Language around financial exigency and program redundancy has been strengthened.
On compensation, King’s was still under one year of moderation. In each of the two years of the agreement, there is a one per cent ATB increase to salaries, as well as to Progress-Through-the-Ranks (PTR) increments, and a one per cent increase to overload rates in the first year of the agreement. For 2023-2024 there will be an additional one-time increase of $5,000 on the base salary to address the comparator wage gap. KUCFA also negotiated a wage re-opener clause for 2023-24 in the case that Bill 124 is repealed or amended.
On pension and benefits, the King’s Pension Plan Committee is instructed to make a formal recommendation to the parties by March 31st, 2023, regarding the transfer of the King’s Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan to the University Pension Plan (UPP). Group life insurance increased by $78,000 to a maximum of $438,000. Increases were also gained for hearing aids, nursing home, and mental health counseling coverage. LTAs of minimum one year now receive $4,000 per year towards the purchase of a benefits package in place of the new faculty start-up benefit. New full-time LTAs with contracts of three years are now eligible for moving expenses. Professional Expense Reimbursement (PER) funds increased by one per cent in each year of the agreement.
Through the Salary Anomaly Study established in the previous agreement, a standardized set of criteria for the determination of experience credits for full-time faculty has been set up as an appendix in the collective agreement.