FARDP Negotiation Update – April 2025

FARDP Negotiations updates for April  2025:

April 14, 2025 

At bargaining, RDP provided a counter proposal for Article 8: Workload. Their counter proposal reduced the assignable hours per week from 42 hours down to 40 hours. The instructional hours remained the same. Workloads were also averaged over 2 year and could be 15 hours higher than the norm. RDP added language to define the streams after FARDP had provided definitions in the proposal they provided on March 11th. RDP’s proposal contains a teaching focus stream, while FARDP has a sessional and part time stream. RDP’s proposal allows for sessional workloads to be “different” than the stream norms. When asked to clarify what was meant by different, it was determined that different could be higher or lower. Performance expectations that come with each stream were also absent from RDP’s proposal. No other table is seeing an increase in workload. In fact, two other tables have negotiated a decrease in trades workloads.

April 15, 2025 

Both parties agreed on Article 13: Leaves of Absence. As noted previously, the number of Flexible Leave days has increased from 3 to 4. The total number of casual sickness plus flexible leave remains unchanged at 20 days. RDP agreed to include language to clarify what happens when a faculty member misses class due to flexible leave or casual sickness. Faculty are not obligated to make up the class time or cover someone else’s class in exchange. RDP also agreed to language regarding Part Time faculty. When there is a family or health emergency, Part Time faculty may exhaust their Flexible Leave first.  Contracts will only be terminated if the contract period has been exhausted before the faculty member is able to return from an unpaid leave.

April 16, 2025 

Both parties agree on Article 6: Probationary and Continuous Appointment. FARDP withdrew is proposal to reduce the length of the probationary period since RDP made it conditional on the continuous appointment process resting solely with the Dean. FARDP could not agree to a process that was not subject to review and happens behind closed doors. The agreed on changes to Article 6 allow for part time probationary to become part time continuous. The length of the probationary period is a proration of the 3 year period, up to a maximum of 6 years. The parties still do not agree as to the makeup of the Faculty Performance Committee. FARDP also continues to pursue the addition of timelines to the collective agreement for the probationary process (FARDP’s proposed Article B).  On April 16th, RDP tabled their monetary proposal.