Rights & Benefits
A comprehensive overview of your Rights & Benefits, as shown in the Collective Agreement.
Health
Article 7 of our Collective Agreement 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 of our Collective Agreement sets out the various qualifying timelines and eligibilities.
More detailed information on health and other benefits is available in the College’s “Employee Benefits Booklet” available from the People Services department, myVCC under the People Services department, and Pacific Blue Cross website.
Leaves
Article 8 of the VCCFA Collective Agreement and Article 7 (Leaves) of the Common Agreement (grey pages at the back) 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
For more information or questions on any PD related issue, contact a steward.
Vacation
Regular instructors have a vacation entitlement of up to 44 days a year. There is also a winter holiday break in late December/early January where the College is closed.
Non-regular term and auxiliary instructors are paid a higher rate of hourly pay in lieu of accruing vacation. After 200 days of work (about 10 months), a term instructor would have earned an annual salary equal to a full year’s salary for a regular at the same salary step and time-status.
Funding
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.
Pensions
The BC Public Sector Pension Plans website is the best place to start for information about an individual’s pension.
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.