TSSU and SFU have met three times since expiry of the collective agreement on April 30, 2014. Prior to discussing contract language, both sides expressed a desire to avoid repeating the 29 month bargaining process of last round, and agreed that negotiations work better when discussing actual proposal language. By signing the protocol agreement, both sides committed to bring a full set of proposals to our next meeting.

At the next meeting on June 4, 2014, SFU came with no proposals. TSSU presented a full package of non-monetary proposal language and a summary of our monetary package.

The TSSU is fighting to [1]:

• improve job security for sessional instructors through a seniority system, to value their teaching experience while ensuring a portion of sessional positions for graduate students
• build a ladder between sessional instructor positions and permanent teaching positions,
• ensure ELC/ITP instructors at Harbour Centre get benefits and working conditions comparable with those of their administrative support staff colleagues,
• revise the TA/TM language to get ahead of the ongoing merging and changing nature of the two jobs, and to address systemic workload issues in TA and TM contracts
• assure graduate students have priority access to TA work,
• fix the childcare bursary/fund so that money gets into the hands of parents,
• propose reasonable wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living, along with benefit improvements.

TSSU met with SFU again on June 18, 2014. SFU presented no proposals, except, reluctantly, the change of a single number in the ELC/ITP language. Besides that proposal, to date, SFU has only discussed its general list of items, for example: "review and revise the categories of Teaching Assistants." Items such as these do not constitute proposals, nor do they define the issues SFU wishes to address or outline their implications for our members. TSSU expects SFU will fulfil its obligation to produce proposal language at our next meeting on August 26, 2014, and remains committed to following the agreed bargaining protocol.

For our part, TSSU will continue to pursue productive bargaining with SFU to build a fair collective agreement for our members.

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Footnote:
[1] TSSU's full package of proposals is available to TSSU members at the Union Office on Burnaby campus (AQ 5129). Please contact tssu@tssu.ca for more details.