Negotiations
Joint University/Association Committee: JUAC has been meeting monthly to discuss and attempt to resolve matters of mutual concern as may arise. These matters may include updates to legislation, flexible working conditions, and other items that can affect APSA members’ terms and conditions of employment and work life at SFU.
Joint Compensation Review Committee: In the 2015 round of negotiations, Colin Taylor arbitrated an award for APSA. The committee collaborates on market comparisons, salaries, and other total compensation components as mandated by the award. The arbitrator has not decided in three years and has recently recused himself. The University has decided that this committee no longer needs to meet, and there has been no agreement on recommendations. APSA’s position is that there is still work to complete. We recently applied to be heard by the Board of Governors but were denied. We will give you more details in an upcoming newsletter.
Salary and Benefits Committee: The APSA board has appointed members to the Salary and Benefits Committee, who will begin their work this week. APSA anticipates bargaining to commence in late summer 2025.
Grievances
APSA has resolved a grievance with SFU this month, coming to a settlement on behalf of our member. APSA has filed two grievances based on Article 9.2 of our Basic Agreement. These grievances are for the professional development fund reimbursement payout for temporary members from our last round of bargaining and the University’s aggregation of sick leave for concurrent illnesses. We are working to resolve these disputes with SFU.
APSA advocates have several ongoing grievances and investigations regarding accommodations, return to work, hours of work, and bullying and harassment. Due to confidentiality issues, we can’t provide any details. Please see this infographic on the Life of a Grievance to learn more about how the grievance process works.
Meetings with Senior Leadership
APSA has continued to meet with Senior Leadership on various topics, including discrepancies with Hybrid Work, and has requested the University's SFU Q3 financials. The latter have not been received and are being reviewed in conjunction with SFU's budget book and, upon release, SFU's consolidated financials for 2024-2025.
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 the budget issues and the concerns surrounding the 2023-2024 SFU Budget.
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 cap on study permits and their impact on SFU’s international tuition revenue, among 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 position eliminations and CUPE layoffs. SFU cited budget issues as the reason for closing these offices. APSA is investigating this further.
APSA continues to receive position eliminations on a department-by-department basis with notification from HR.