Our Collective Agreement (Article 7) and Article 9 of the Common Agreement (grey pages at the back) provide us with a comprehensive set of Health Benefits that include Basic Medical, Extended Health Benefits, Dental Coverage, Sick Leave (on an entitlement accrual basis), Short-term and Long-term Disability. Appendix III-A on page 102 of our Collective Agreement sets out the various qualifying timelines and eligibilities for different classes of instructors.

More detailed information on health and other benefits is available in the College’s “Employee Benefits Booklet” available from the Human Resources department and Pacific Blue Cross website.

Questions should be forwarded to stewards.

Leaves

VCCFA’s Collective Agreement, Article 8, and provisions of the Common Agreement, Article 7-Leaves, and Article 8-Parental Leaves in the grey section, provides for an array of leaves and sets out the terms and conditions around them. Among others, they include provisions for an adjudicated amount of education leave and a Supplemental Employment Benefit for Maternity and Parental Leave.

Our Collective Agreement also includes Retirement Preparation Leave (8.11) and Renewal Leave (8.12) which provide significant stipends while on leave which allow one to continue health coverage and pension contributions.

For the details about Leaves, Entitlements, Vacation and Professional Development, see the chart below. Check Articles in the Collective Agreement for further details and/or connect with the union office for clarification.

Professional Development activity at VCC is “employee-initiated.” In Collective Agreement Article 6.6, instructors make a proposal for using the time through their Department Head and Dean.

The amount of time is based an entitlement accrual. As long as one is working at least half-time then with 7 months of assigned duty within a fiscal year, one qualifies for 15 days of PD. With 8 months, for 20 days. Both of these amounts are to be considered as “minimums,” but the college does often exceed them. Instructors should consider these minimum amounts as their right. VCC provides less PD time than many other colleges.

If one’s workload during the qualifying period fluctuates between half and full-time then one’s pay for the PD period is pro-rated; see Appendix V, page 108.

The Collective Agreement also sets up funds to support PD and PD activities. There is a $100,000 PD Fund detailed in Appendix IX, page 135 and Appendix X, pages 136 to 140.

To typically support attendance and participation at conferences costing up to $1000.00 apply to the Adjudicated PD Fund of $50,000; see Appendix XI, page 141.

The Common Faculty PD Fund valued at over $200,000 (Appendix XII, page 142 and page 53 of the Common Agreement) is for more expensive professional development costs. See link to the Guidelines below.

For more information or questions on PD time or any other PD related issue, call a steward.

Vacation

For non-regular term and auxiliary instructors, pay for what would be a vacation if they worked a full year is already included in their pay. After 202 days of work, about 10 months, they will have earned an annual salary equal to a full year’s salary for a regular at the same salary step. (For regular instructors, pay is divided into 24 semi-monthly pay periods.)

Earned vacation entitlement is up to 44 duty days a year. There’s also a Christmas holiday covering the Christmas/New Year period.

Contact a steward with any questions.

Through its annual budget approval process the VCCFA supports the release of its officers, stewards and bargainers so that they can perform their duties on behalf of the membership.

Our rep to the FPSE Pension Advisory Committee is Alison Woods, local 7218. Please contact her if you have a general inquiry or a question about pension policies. For specific details of one’s own pension we advise that you start with the Pension Board’s website.

Some members may have accumulated pensionable service in other BC public sector pension plans that they want to transfer to the College Pension Plan. There is a new agreement regarding such transfers. The main difference with this new agreement is that transferred service will now be prorated based on the difference between the pension benefits payable from each plan. In most cases, members transferring services from other plans to the College Pension Plan will not be credited with the same amount of service because our plan pays relatively high benefits. For example, one year in another plan might be worth only 10 months in the Pension Plan. However, members will be able to have the same amount of service credited by paying the shortfall (in the example, 2 months). For more details take a look at the fact sheet on transferring service on the Pension Plan Website.

Also note that the Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP) and the ICBC Pension Plan have been added to the list of BC public sector pension plans covered by the transfer agreement. You may be eligible to transfer service from public sector plans in other provinces; contact the Pension Corporation at 1-888-440-0111.

Human Resources at VCC often puts on workshops on retirement planning. VCCFA members are encouraged to attend. Check with Alison Woods for more information.