PROPOSED COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT RATIFIED

• 94% in favor of the Collective Agreement
• 6% against

FARDP Negotiations updates for January 2026:

January 7, 2026

In a November post on this website, FARDP identified the following items as still outstanding at the bargaining table:

• Article 7: Part Time (PT) and Sessional Contracts
• Article 8: Workload
• Article 10: Salary
• Article 14: PD
• LOU 1: Health Spending Account
• Article F: Academic Freedom

On Tuesday December 16th and Friday December 19th, FARDP and RDP resolved ALL BUT ONE of these items.

The team was really hoping to send you an update before you went off on holidays telling you that we had an agreement for you to vote on. But that did not happen….

The Good News…

• RDP has offered an $850 Health Spending Account / Wellness Account (it is currently $500). Faculty will allocate money between the two at the beginning of each academic year. Note that Wellness Accounts allow for reimbursement of gym memberships but are taxable benefits. This change would begin July 1.
• RDP has offered a 12% salary increase including back pay (3% for 2024-25, 3% for 2025-26, 3% for 2026-27, and 3% for 2027-28). This is the same salary everyone in the public sector who has made an agreement (teachers, nurses, colleges) obtained.
• RDP has offered an overload pay of 0.55 times your pay on the Full Time grid times a proration of your workload norm (if more than 450) or proration of 425 (if your workload norm is less than 450). This is more than the current overload pay but not as high as the overload pay in 2016-19. However, it is more than the institution was offering on December 16th.
• RDP has agreed to add 2 rows to the Part Time grid.
• RDP has agreed to merge columns D and F on the grid at the time of ratification. If you are D or F, you will receive the higher of the two for that step. Note that this does not change back pay.
• Instructors who are registered as a Licensed Practical Nurse or a Registered Nurse teaching in a program where the designation is required will receive an additional 5% salary increase upon ratification. This does not change back pay.
• Instructors who teach in the Trades will move two steps up the grid upon ratification. This does not change back pay.
• Instructors who are at the top of the F grid will receive an additional 1.25% salary increase upon ratification. For instructors currently on the top of the D grid, your salary will increase an additional 0.59% upon ratification, as the D and F grids are combined.
• RDP has agreed to leave PD at 5%. The LOU that partitions PD funds into scholarship and non-scholarship will cease to exist.
• RDP has agreed to leave Article 8: Workload as status quo with the exception of:
  • Overload pay (mentioned above),
  • Increasing the stipend for supervising student researchers (from 250 to 300),
  • Ensuring courses with multiple instructors have workloads allocated based on contact hour expectations,
  • Inclusion of Chairs in strategic decisions,
  • Protecting a 5 day work week, and
  • Ensuring faculty teaching online are given appropriate technology.
• In exchange, FARDP has dropped their Academic Freedom Proposal, as well as proposed changes to Article 8 (Workload) and Article 10 (Salary).
• FARDP has also agreed to drop proposed changes to Article 7 (Part Time and Sessional Contracts), with the exception of the following:
  • Programs with at least 1 cohort of students and at least 2 full time faculty, shall normally have at least 1 continuous faculty member as of June 2026.
  • The Association will receive the number of PT, sessional, probationary, and continuous members by school. As well as the number of sessionals converted each year.
  • Clarification on what if means for a sessional position to remain eligible for auto rehire.
  • Conversion from sessional to probationary happens after 2 years instead of 3. Please note that budget remains a reason for not converting a position.
• The Faculty Performance Committee will retain its current makeup by renewing the existing LOU (3 Admin and 6 Continuous Faculty)
• A committee of Faculty and Admin will investigate workload streams. How should workloads be adjusted for those entering a teaching focus or research focus stream? How do Faculty enter the streams?
• The LOU for Workload and Scholarship Requirements for Degree Programs (i.e a research workload of 8 courses) will stay in place. Please note that the LOU states “FARDP and the Polytechnic will submit proposals to the Faculty Workload Committee to propose instructional hour norms for new programs under Article 8.5 for each of the Baccalaureate degrees.”

And now the BAD News….

While RDP has agreed to leave Article 8.5 untouched, they continue to threaten the integrity of the Faculty Workload Committee. For those not familiar with Article 8.5, the Faculty Workload Committee which is made up of 2 Faculty and 2 Admin, review proposals to establish the workload norms for new programs. The committee also reviews recommendations from Faculty or Admin to revise workloads. Last round of bargaining, FARDP went to formal mediation (one step before strike) to protect the continued existence of the Faculty Workload Committee. Faculty having an equal say in what workloads should be, is something FARDP SHOULD NEVER give up.

Now… RDP wants to change the Terms of Reference of the Committee. The issue…If the 2 faculty and 2 admin cannot agree on a workload norm, then the Terms of Reference have them agree on a third party (someone who is not faculty or admin) to break the tie or propose a compromise. When this happened with a recent proposal, RDP felt the third party forced them to accept a workload that they would have never agreed to. They are proposing the 2 Admin and 2 Faculty on the Workload Committee rewrite the terms of reference (that is ok, the current Terms of Reference say this is who should write the Terms of Reference). What is concerning is that if the Faculty Workload Committee cannot agree on the new Terms of Reference, RDP wants the President of RDP, or the head of People and Culture, or someone in an administrative position to decide what the Terms of Reference should be. FARDP CANNOT lose their equal say on establishing workload. We will continue to defend the integrity of the Faculty Workload Committee.

So where does that leave negotiations? The Faculty Association is back at the bargaining table on Thursday January 8th. We have given RDP the winter break to reconsider their proposal. If they don’t withdraw their proposal, the next step is formal mediation to resolve this one last BUT VERY IMPORTANT issue.

The Negotiations Team will be hosting town halls later this month once we have more information for you. Stay tuned.

On November 7, the FARDP Negotiations Team and RDP met to bargain. The following articles were signed off by all parties. This indicates that both groups agree on the language and recommend that language to their stakeholders. Any articles that have been signed off at the bargaining table still have to be ratified in a vote by all faculty.

We have agreement on:

• Article 1: Length of the Agreement – will go from July 2024 to June 2028 (same as everyone else)
• Article 2: Membership in the Association – contracts will advise faculty to contact the Association prior to signing. This will help new faculty with placement on the grid.
• Article 3: Exemption from Membership – there will no longer be faculty who are not FARDP
• Article 4: Dues and Association Business (no change)
• Article 5: Management Rights (no change – FARDP withdrew proposal regarding consultation)
• Article 6: Probation and Continuous Appointment – addition of Part Time Probationary who become Part Time Continuous
• Article 9: Redundancy and Reassignment (no change – article was revised last round of bargaining)
• Article 11: Benefits (no change – FARDP withdrew proposal regarding changes to funding of benefits)
• Article 12: Vacations – uninterrupted days drops from 35 to 30 (still entitled to 45 vacation days)
• Article 13: Leave of Absence – increase flexible leave days from 3 to 4
• Article 15: Tuition Free Waiver – Continuous faculty can accrue tuition waiver to use upon retirement
• Article 16: Notice of Retirement – decrease notice period by 1 month. If not adequate notice then RDP can count replacement as Probationary/Continuous in the Article 7 ratio (full workload equivalence of all faculty must be 65% Probationary/Continuous).
• Article 17: Discipline (no change – rewritten last round)
• Article 18: Grievance (no change – rewritten last round)
• Article 19: Continuous Part Time – temporary Part Time Continuous can elect to be permanent Part Time Continuous
• Appendix A: Continuous Appointment Appeal (no change)
• Appendix B:  Supplemental Benefits for Pregnancy Leave (no change)
• LOU 2:  Insurance Coverage for Sessionals doing PD on Unpaid Contracts (no change to process – cleaned up wording)
• LOU 3: Dual Credit (no change)
• LOU 4: Flexible Leave – made permanent by moving into Article 13
• LOU 5: Joint Dispute Resolution Committee – removed
• LOU 6: Scholarship Requirements – removed
• LOU 8: Workload Project – removed
• LOU 9: Research and Scholarship Fund – removed
• LOU Y: AI Working Group – 6 faculty and 6 admin to explore opportunities and challenges of AI
• LOU Z: Position Description for Counsellors, Librarians, Research Commons, and Learning Designers – define scope of work to prevent job creep

What we do not have agreement on…

• Article 7: Part Time (PT) and Sessional Contracts –
  • FARDP wants time recognition for the non-teaching work done by Sessional faculty.
  • FARDP wants PT pro-rated on the Full Time grid with the ability to move up. FARDP gave up requests for time recognition to get PT higher pay. RDP agreed to the Full Time grid but with very little movement.
• Article 8: Workload –
  • RDP wants to increase workload for faculty who are not in Nursing or Trades. For some faculty, that would be a 20% increase in workload.
  • RDP wants to maintain a similar workload for Nursing and to lower Trades workloads.
  • FARDP wants a lower workload for Nurses and faculty who currently teach a 450 in degrees and diplomas. FARDP is willing to keep workloads for those in Humanities, Business, and other disciplines with a workload lower than 450 at status quo to get to a deal. FARDP is NOT willing to make anyone’s workload go up.
• Article 10: Salary-
  • RDP wants a 10% increase over 4 years with no backpay and FARDP wants a 12% increase with back pay (what everyone else has received across the province)
  • FARDP wants PT pro-rated on the Full Time grid with the ability to move up. RDP agreed to the Full Time grid with very little movement.
  • FARDP wants additional rows on the salary grid to make pay (particularly for journeypeople) similar to SAIT and NAIT
• Article 14: PD – RDP wants a 0.5% decrease and FARDP wants to keep the 5% PD fund as is
• LOU 1: Health Spending Account – RDP is at 750 (what AUPE and Exempt currently have, even though AUPE is bargaining for higher right now) and FARDP is at 850 (what all other faculty in ACIFA are at)
• Article F: Academic Freedom – RDP has a policy and FARDP wants stronger language (not academic freedom subject to policies and constraints)

What is next…

RDP is no longer willing to negotiate.

RDP won’t agree to a 12% increase in salary without FARDP dropping additional rows to the grid and agreeing to RDP’s workload model. As great as the achievements listed above, they are all little things. The most important issues are still unresolved. And, what they are proposing on those outstanding issues do not help any of our faculty.

• It does not help Part Time faculty who are poorly paid.
• It doesn’t help Sessionals who are doing free work after their contract ends.
• It does not help Trades faculty who are the lowest paid in the province. Trades also have the highest workload, but for Trades the additional rows on the grid are far more important than a change in workload.
• It doesn’t help Nurses who need a lower workload. Offering a market supplement (extra 5% pay) just for Nurses does not resolve the issue for why they left industry to teach.  Many of our Nursing faculty took $20,000 pay cuts to teach in hopes of a better work life balance and less stress. High workloads, where life and death are in the balance, is burning out our faculty.
• It doesn’t help faculty whose workload would increase up to 20% only to get a 12% raise. Their hourly wage would decrease. Even a 12% raise across 4 years doesn’t cover past inflation. Increasing workload for some of our faculty makes a portion of our FARDP faculty poorer at the expense of others.
• It doesn’t help faculty who are trying to do research. RDP’s proposal would increase the research workload for faculty in Business and Psychology (currently at 337.5, would increase to 360). The current research workload is higher than Mount Royal or MacEwan, who teach equivalent programs.
• It doesn’t help faculty who use most or all of their PD funds to maintain their credentials, licenses, and insurance. RDP’s proposal does not cover any of those, even though they are required to maintain our accreditation. On top of that, they want to lower the Professional Development fund from 5% to 4.5%.
• All the while, increasing everyone’s non-teaching responsibilities. You would be scheduled 40 hours a week. According to People and Culture you are currently scheduled for 35. Increased expectations for projects and committees (to about 300 hours a year).
• And on top of all of that…creating no protections for faculty against the political winds we are seeing elsewhere. Protections from issues like the banning of specific terminology and topics in our classes.

FARDP and RDP are going to Mediation.

RDP has proposed Formal Mediation.

Why Formal Mediation? There are two options: informal mediation and formal mediation. Formal mediation starts the strike/lockout process. RDP believes this additional incentive might bring the groups together. RDP and FARDP are currently investigating whether a mediator can be found in December to potentially conduct informal mediation (before anyone has to consider going to formal mediation).

If FARDP ends up in Formal Mediation. What happens?

RDP and FARDP can continue to bargain with a mediator’s assistance for as long as both parties find it helpful. If that mediation results in a proposal that FARDP endorses, then the faculty get to vote. If that mediation results in a proposal that FARDP does not endorse, RDP can request a vote by faculty of their proposal (they get one of these per round of bargaining). If faculty vote this down, then there is a 2 week cooling off period. Then faculty can vote to strike or RDP can call for a lockout. If a strike vote is successful then a strike can be declared 72 hours after the vote. If a lockout is called, then FARDP will call for a strike vote in response. FARDP will want to make sure that RDP does not call for a lockout, terminate the collective agreement, then end the lockout on their own terms. FARDP will want to ensure that no work resumes until we have a collective agreement we endorse.

FARDP hopes the outstanding issues can be resolved at INFORMAL mediation so that we can maintain the good working relationship between faculty and RDP Administration. But… if we have to go to FORMAL mediation or beyond to stand up for our faculty, to get the same salary as other institutions, and to prevent the heavy workloads we have from getting even worse, FARDP will do it. And we will do it TOGETHER.

Now is the time for Conversation.

Please stay after the next program or School meeting to talk with your FARDP Exec and members of the FARDP Negotiations Team. FARDP will also be hosting a town hall at the end of November with more information. Look for invites in your email. The Negotiations Team will also be sending out informational videos over the next couple of weeks.

FARDP Negotiations updates for September 2025:

September 15, 2025

Bargaining returned on Friday September 12th. RDP provided a counter to the proposal FARDP provided in May. Their new proposal contains similar workloads to previous proposals with three streams – teaching focus, teaching and service, and a research focus stream. The workload would decrease for Trades, be largely the same for Nursing (if you do a combination of clinical and theory), but increase for many faculty in other programs. RDP is also proposing a different amount of time for Professional Development and uninterrupted Vacation time (total Vacation is still the same), depending on your stream. While FARDP appreciates that RDP is no longer asking for all faculty to have less time for PD and uninterrupted Vacation time, FARDP does object to the creation of second class faculty. FARDP will not agree to faculty being forced into a stream that will then give them less than their colleagues without getting some other benefit in lieu. There needs to be an exchange, you teach more in exchange for less of something else (like committee work). Not less PD and Vacation.

RDP still proposes a cut in PD funds from the current level arguing that faculty don’t use all of the PD fund currently. They did increase Overload Pay from their previous proposal, they limited class time to a 5 day work week, and increased the health spending account to $750 (which is what AUPE and Exempt have currently).  For more details, please see the post behind the log in.

On September 26th, FARDP will provide a counter proposal.

September 29, 2025

On Friday September 26th, the FARDP bargaining team provided a counter proposal to RDP. This proposal included changing the workload for academic faculty to reflect the current workloads. Previous versions had workloads decreasing for this group. The proposal included a 405 workload for certificate and diploma programs and a 382.5 workload for baccalaureate. While this proposal will reduce workloads for some programs, it stands by our commitment to not have anyone’s workload go up. At the same time we are trying to show movement and find compromise with RDP, when possible, so that we can get an agreement that everyone endorses. As such, the FARDP proposal moved from a single line salary grid back to the traditional grid format. We still want Part Time on the Full Time grid. We still want to consolidate the Journey-person (F) and Baccalaureate (D) columns on the grid (using the higher numbers of the two columns). RDP has agreed to both priorities, which is fantastic. While the FARDP proposal restores the original grid, it does add 4 more rows to the grid. We continue to recognize the need for salary increases (beyond the 12%) to be competitive with other institutions and industry.

On October 3rd, RDP will provide a counter proposal.

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.

FARDP Negotiations updates for February  2025:

February 10, 2025 

At bargaining, the parties discussed the definition of Academic Freedom, the 35 uninterrupted days of vacation currently in Article 12, and exemptions to Membership (Article 3). Both RDP and FARDP expressed interest in finding a solution to Part Time and Sessional pay for Supplemental and Deferred Exams so as to not impact their EI. However, neither side had a viable solution at the time. Discussion of Article 12 will resume when workload is discussed in March.

February 11, 2025 

RDP and FARDP were unable to agree on a definition for Academic Freedom in the Collective Agreement. Both parties did agree on language for Article 19 regarding the posting of part-time probationary positions, as well as the ability of continuous faculty to choose to be part-time, temporarily or permanently. RDP also agreed to delete Article 3 (Exemptions to Membership) in exchange for FARDP dropping their proposed Contracting Out language. Both parties agreed to delete the Letter of Understanding for the Joint Dispute Resolution process. The parties discussed shortening the probationary period. This conversation will continue in March.

FARDP Negotiations updates for December 2024:

December 2, 2024
Exchange of proposals and overview. Meeting was open to faculty and admin in addition to bargaining teams.

December 9, 2024
FARDP responded to questions from RDP regarding overview, definitions, Articles 1 & 2, and FARDP’s proposed article on Contracting Out. RDP agreed to provide language regarding LOUs at next meeting.