Negotiations
Salary and Benefits Committee: Productive negotiations were delayed by the B.C. government’s late release of the “enhanced mandate,” which came only after months of talks. With new government funding, your bargaining team has worked to secure significant improvements to the benefits package, though only two short bargaining sessions have taken place after the enhanced mandate was confirmed. Negotiations have now reached an impasse, so the process will move to Final Offer Selection arbitration as outlined in the APSA Basic Agreement. The team remains committed to securing the best outcome and thanks all members for their patience and support, as well as the negotiating team for their dedication.
Joint University/Association Committee (JUAC) meets monthly to discuss and resolve matters of mutual concern as they arise. These matters may include legislative updates, flexible working conditions, and other issues that can affect APSA members’ terms and conditions of employment and work-life at SFU. This committee has updated several policies, which both APSA and SFU have ratified.
Joint Compensation Review Committee: In the 2015 round of negotiations, Colin Taylor arbitrated an award in favour of APSA. The committee collaborates on market comparisons, salaries, and other components of total compensation as mandated by the award. The arbitrator failed to issue a decision for three years and then recused himself. We have arbitrator Chris Sullivan, who completed the arbitration process and APSA and SFU will meet to complete the committee’s duties and responsibilities. Learn more about the JCRC here.
Grievances
APSA has filed one grievance based on Article 9.2 of our Basic Agreement. This grievance concerns the University’s aggregation of sick leave for concurrent illnesses. We are working to resolve this with SFU. APSA has also filed Basic Agreement grievances related to hybrid issues, and one regarding difficulties with SFU’s attempts to convert some APSA members to APEX. Both are ongoing.
We have two cases that are moving to arbitration regarding age-related LTD and pension.
APSA advocates also have several ongoing grievances and investigations regarding accommodations, return to work, hours of work, workload and bullying and harassment. Due to confidentiality issues, we can’t provide any details. Please see the infographic “Life of a Grievance” to learn more about how the grievance process works.
Meetings with Senior Leadership
APSA has continued to meet with SFU’s senior leadership on various topics, including discrepancies in staff workloads following the Voluntary Retirement Program, job security, and the state of SFU’s finances.
SFU Budget
On April 16, the University sent a message to all staff on its financial challenges and presented its forecasted balanced budget for 2024-2025 in its 2024–25 Budget Book. SFU has released its actuals for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which we include here.
Andrew Boden has written about budget issues and concerns surrounding the 2023-2024 and 2025-2026 SFU Budgets.
In discussions with SFU senior administration on December 2, 2024, we learned that the University remains very concerned about the Federal government’s changes to the study permit cap and their impact on SFU’s international tuition revenue, as well as other revenue streams. The administration continues to lobby the Federal government and the new NDP government in B.C. to mitigate the effects on SFU and the post-secondary sector in general. Budget cuts are expected to continue in 2025-2026.
On January 23, 2025, the SFU Provost Office announced that it would be closing the Vancity Office of Community Engagement and SFU’s Office of Community Engagement. This resulted in several APSA positions being eliminated and CUPE layoffs. SFU cited budget issues as the reason for closing these offices. APSA is investigating this further.
APSA continues to receive department-by-department position eliminations, as notified by HR. Some of these eliminations, unfortunately, are related to workforce planning.