As we get closer to the expiry of our collective agreement – 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, August 31, 2025 – your bargaining team has been hard at work back in negotiations this week.Our collective pressure is working. We’ve been able to push off some concessions, such as doubling on-call time and threats to vacation carry-over. However, we also see this as a classic employer tactic: push serious concessions you can peel off in the eleventh hour as “progress,” in order to mask lack of movement on key issues for our membership, like job security.For the first time since we started bargaining, we received a monetary proposal from the employer. While the parties remain apart on some key issues, we are most alarmed by a new proposal: a Letter of Understanding seeking to establish a joint employer/union committee to explore the “financial sustainability of the Support Staff Benefits Plan.” This fight is about tenable futures: what we can secure at the table will define our members’ financial security, and what student supports are available on campuses, for years to come.Giving up our right to strike doesn’t protect student futures – ensuring there are staff left to support them through their studies does. Moving to interest arbitration now risks a third-party awarded contract which will do little to safeguard what’s left of the college system so that we can rebuild, better.It’s all on the line. If the employer can’t meet their responsibility to protect what remains, we will have to hold that line and fight to protect the futures of our college communities.
At this juncture, while both parties trade proposals and indicate agreement on changes, no items have been signed off on beyond some Letters of Understanding.Here is where the parties stand on our key differences as of August 30, 2025: | UNION’S POSITION | EMPLOYER’S OFFER |
| Job security | No contracting out language.Protections against managers doing support staff work.Protections against erosion of bargaining unit work by technological advances, like artificial intelligence.Alternative guarantees to our members that jobs will be protected to stabilize the student experience – such as a temporary moratorium on further staffing reductions, and campus closures/mergers.Protections for Appendix D temporary employees – including counting time worked while temporary as service, and removing probation once qualifying for a permanent opportunity.Presently, workers can remain in temporary roles for years without those years of service transferring into a new, permanent role – and also need to repeat the probationary period. | Enhancing our severance package – which does not save jobs.Agreeing to enhance recall rights for members with 2 years of service, or less, to par with all other permanent employees. |
| Benefits | Improvements to:- Dental Plan;
- Vision Care;
- Hearing Care;
Adding:- Gender Affirmation coverage plan;
- Family Building coverage plan;
- Weight cessation coverage.
| $3000 → $3250 Hearing Aid benefit every three (3) yearsNo other benefits improvements.New Letter of Understanding for a joint employer/union committee to explore the “financial sustainability of the Support Staff Benefits Plan” for term of the agreement. |
| Wages | $1.75/hr in Year 14% in Year 24% in Year 3Our flat rate in Year 1 brings our lowest paid members up to the average and equitably narrows the pay gap. | 2% in Year One
2% in Year Two
1.5% in Year ThreeNo strategies to improve the gap between pay bands. |
| On-Call | Raising the on-call shift premium from $1.00/hr – our rate since 2008:$3.00/hr up to the monthly maximum$5.00/hr for time voluntarily worked beyond the monthly maximum | Increase of shift premiums:$1.50/hr up to the monthly maximum$3.00/hr for time voluntarily worked beyond the monthly maximum Removal of concession doubling the on-call maximum from 128 hrs/month to 256 hrs/month. |
| Shift premiums | The union is in agreement to shift premium increases.Our original proposals on shift premiums: $2.00/hr between 5 p.m. and 12 a.m.
$2.50/hr between 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.$2.75/hr for Saturday & Sunday hours | Marginal increases to shift premiums:$0.75/hr → $1.25/hr between 5 p.m. and 12 a.m.$1.00 → $1.75/hr between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. |
| Vacation carry-over | The union maintains status quo protections of vacation carry-over. | Removal of language which would enforce the loss of excess vacation days which go unused.Under Article 11.5, it is the colleges which unilaterally schedule vacations, and it is not uncommon for vacations to be cancelled. Language enforcing the loss of carry-over would affect members |
As always, you can read the latest bargaining updates on
CollegeSupportFT.org.Solidarity,
Your College Support Full-Time Bargaining Team:Christine Kelsey, Local 416 (Chair)
Shelley Gartshore, Local 124 (Vice-Chair)
Veronica Attard, Local 416
Dan Brisson, Local 672
Bob Holder, Local 243
Dana Leaman, Local 241
Xiaoyan Wang, Local 561
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