The Joint University and Association Committee [JUAC] was reactivated after nearly nine years. The restart was urged upon the parties by arbitrators James Dorsey and Christopher Sullivan. Both arbitrators saw the need for the Association and the University to talk to each other regularly. Mr. Sullivan required the parties to employ a facilitator for the discussions for the first year. Cathy Knapp was retained to serve in that role, and the parties have recently extended her appointment for an additional 6 months.

To read more about JUAC's work, here's the committee report from this year's AGM.

There are two important changes that JUAC would like to bring to the attention of APSA members. 

1. The ESA is now included in the Work Schedules Policy AD 10.13. The policy has been updated on SFU's website. 

APSA would like to point out that in section 2.06 of the policy, all APSA members must record hours worked in excess of 7.2 hours in a standard workday.

2.06 To ensure the University is able to comply with, as the case may be, both the provisions of this Policy and the Employment Standards Act, every Member must both make a daily record of hours worked by the Member in excess of 7.2 hours on a Standard Work Day and a weekly record of the hours worked by the Member on a day which is not a Standard Work Day and submit those records to the Member's supervisor within five work days after the Sunday of the calendar week to which the records refer.

Here are SFU's guidelines to overtime and their overtime tracker.

2. The other notable change is the provincial legislative change regarding sick notes in the workplace. On November 12, 2025, an email was sent out to all supervisors regarding sick notes. The email included:

That the BC government passed a regulation setting out the "specified circumstances" in which employers are prohibited from requesting a medical note under Bill 11 of the BC Employment Standards Amendment Act. This new rule is expected to ensure that those who are sick can stay home to recover, while reducing the unnecessary administrative burden on physicians.

The Bill specifies that employers are not permitted to request (and employees cannot be required to provide) medical documentation to support a sick leave (or "health-related" leave) IF:

  • The leave is less than five consecutive days AND
  • The employee has not taken more than one other health-related (sick) leave for a period of up to five consecutive days in the same calendar year (meaning you cannot request a medical note for an employee's first two health-related leaves of up to five consecutive days in the same calendar year).
     

This is retroactively effective as of November 12, 2025, for the remainder of this calendar year, and will reset on January 1 of each calendar year thereafter.  

APSA's understanding of SFU's current practice is that a medical note is not required for the first 10 business days of an illness.

 

Other updated policies include AD 10.14 No Discrimination, a legislative change to comply with changes to the BC Human Rights Code, and AD 10.07 Group Benefit Plans, where the wording "Medical Services Plan (MSP)" was replaced with "Employer Health Tax Act (EHTA)" to comply with provincial legislative changes.