Budgets slashed across the cegep network!
October is Halloween month, but no horror movie is quite as scary as the massive budget cuts that the CAQ government has imposed on the cegep network.
You may have already heard that 50% of the capital budgets of all Cegeps was cut over the summer with very little warning. As the Director General informed the community in the Memos sent earlier this semester, this led to the halting of much-needed renovation projects as well as a freeze on the purchase of new equipment such as computers, library books etc
Now, in the sequel, the government has announced a hiring freeze for any personnel not providing direct services to students. The hiring freeze, which was announced only a few days ago, will come into effect on November 1st.
Once again, Colleges have been given little time to react or adjust to these cuts which will have devastating impacts on our educational mission.
As part of a network-wide protest, the DTU is joining with the other employee unions and the Dawson Student Union to denounce the government’s position. On Halloween, we hung large blue squares at both the Sherbrooke and de Maisonneuve entrance to protest the budget cuts – we encourage teachers to join us in wearing a blue square to show your opposition to the cuts.
THIS ISSUE
Budgets slashed across the cegep network
Check your Seniority
Important Changes to Insurance Coverage
Staffing Courses in French
Leave Deadlines
Retirement Seminar
Scholarity Attestations
CI Violations
CSN Campaign – Vraiment Public
Save the Date!
The DTU Executive
Louisa Hadley, President
President@dtu.qc.ca
Brian Seivewright, VP Internal
VPInternal@dtu.qc.ca
Mélanie Beck, VP External
VPExternal@dtu.qc.ca
Antonia Fikkert, Secretary-Treasurer
Secretary_Treasurer@dtu.qc.ca
Emilie Richer, Grievance Officer
grievanceofficer@dtu.qc.ca
Administrative Assistant
Elisabeth Leone
Elisabeth@dtu.qc.ca
DTU email: dtu@dtu.qc.ca
In addition, we are launching a social media campaign called #RIPmonCegep with pictures documenting the dilapidated state of our facilities. We encourage you to take pictures of broken furniture, unfinished or unclean rooms, computer labs with no computers in and anything else that you can think of that demonstrates that public education is in dire need of investment, not cuts!
Post your pictures to social media with the hashtags #RIPmonCegep, #fightforourcegeps and #onselèvepournoscégeps and tag the Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel (Facebook page: “Sonia LeBel, députée de Champlain à l’Assemblée nationale”) and Minister of Higher Education Pascale Déry (Facebook page: “Pascale Déry – députée de Repentigny à l’Assemblée Nationale”) as well as your local MNA.
You can also send your pictures to dtu@dtu.qc.ca if you would like them to be included in a compilation of pictures that we will be posting on the Dawson Teachers’ Union Facebook Page.
Check Your Seniority
On October 15th, the College sent out the Seniority List, which includes the seniority accrued in the previous three semesters (Fall, Winter, and Summer). There is a period of 20 working days for making corrections, after which the list becomes official and is used as the basis for assigning work until the next seniority list is published.
The College’s memo indicated that they have made an error in the calculation of seniority for some Continuing Education teachers which resulted in them being incorrectly attributed with additional seniority. The College has stated that it will communicate directly with the individual teachers involved. If you have received a message from the College regarding this and have any questions, feel free to reach out to dtu@dtu.qc.ca.
It is important to verify your seniority as soon as possible; if you think your seniority has not been correctly credited, you should contact the DTU. The deadline for corrections to be made is November 12th.
Important Changes to Insurance Coverage
There have been some important modifications to the insurance policy recently which will impact both your coverage and your premiums. There are substantial reductions to the coverage in module A, although module B and module C will also see reductions in coverage. We urge you to consult the info-insurance to understand the changes to your coverage and premium, in particular if you are currently covered by Module A. The info-Insurance is available in French and English .
As a reminder, we are self-insured, albeit with a small employer contribution that was a recent negotiation gain. Consequently, any increase in the costs of medications and services needs to be covered by the premiums collected from those enrolled in the insurance plan.
During the month of November, you have the opportunity to make changes to your insurance coverage, such as changing your module and/or opting in or out of dental insurance. Note that a decrease in coverage is only possible after the teacher has had the same coverage for 3 consecutive years. Changes will take effect on January 1st, 2025. Exceptionally this year, teachers will have the right to switch from Module A to Module B even if they have been enrolled in Module A for less than 12 months. If you wish to alter your plan, you should contact benefits@dawsoncollege.qc.ca in Human Resources.
Staffing Courses in French
As the implementation of Law 14 continues, many departments will begin offering courses in French as of Fall 2025. Since the staffing plans for these courses will be prepared next semester, the DTU is collaborating with the College to ensure that departments are best informed as to how to staff these courses.
Our new Collective Agreement includes an entente that aims to establish transition measures to protect teachers’ employment and working conditions, facilitate their francization and permit an equitable implementation of the law.
The agreement addresses how courses in French will be distributed within a department. As a basic principle, the instruction of courses in French is seen as a collective responsibility of the teachers in a department. Furthermore, teaching loads within a department are to be distributed equitably, taking into account language proficiency. The idea is for French courses to be distributed in such a way as to minimize situations where teachers will have their teaching loads reduced because they do not have sufficient proficiency in French. This may mean that teachers who have a certain French proficiency are required to teach courses in French, at least in the short term. There are also some temporary measures to protect the seniority and priority of teachers who are assigned a course in French but do not possess the proficiency required to teach it.
The DTU and the College will be holding joint information sessions for department coordinators on the following dates:
Monday, 18 November, 10:30-12:00; Boardroom (5B.13)
Thursday, 21 November, 15:30-17:00; Boardroom (5B.13)
Tuesday, 26 November, 14:30-16:00; Boardroom (5B.13)
All teachers are welcome to attend.
Leave Deadlines
Professional Development Leave – November 15th
Under the new Collective Agreement, there is now a strict deadline to apply for a professional development leave. The deadline to apply for a leave for the Winter semester is November 15th. The application form is available on the College website.
VWR – November 15th
If you wish to apply for a Voluntary Workload Reduction for Winter 2025, the deadline is November 15th. To be eligible, teachers need to have a full-time workload for the year and three years of seniority. You should email hrfaculty@dawsoncollege.qc.ca to submit your request. We suggest that you copy the DTU on this email at dtu@dtu.qc.ca.
Retirement Seminars
The DTU will be holding a retirement seminar – see the information in the image below. Please register if you plan to attend to allow us to plan.
If you are unable to attend the DTU seminar, there are several other retirement seminars that will be taking place this semester:
- FNEEQ is offering an online seminar on November 20th. Although the seminar is in French, there will be an opportunity to ask questions in English.
- Beneva is also offering online retirement seminars in English on November 27th and in French on December 10th.
We will be sending out more information to all members about how to register for these events soon.
Scholarity Attestations
Whenever a new teacher is hired, or a previously hired teacher gains additional education, they need to submit the relevant documents to the College so that an attestation of scholarity can be produced. This attestation has an impact on the echelon at which teachers are paid.
After you have submitted all of your documents, it usually takes about 90 days to receive the official attestation. However, once you receive the attestation, we encourage you to contact the DTU if you have any questions or concerns about it. There is a 60-day time-frame in which attestations can be contested, so it is important that we verify there are no issues as soon as possible.
CI Violations
In recent years, many teachers have commented that the number of students in their courses seem to be higher than previously. Last year, we noticed that more teachers than usual had annual CIs above 85, and none of the teachers we communicated with had given their informed consent. We reminded the College that it cannot assign a workload above 85 CI to a teacher without first getting the teacher’s consent, even if the above-85 CI workload is initially only based on projections.
Heavy workloads can generate extra stress on faculty which may have a detrimental impact on our students’ learning environment. Although teachers are paid a “CI violation bonus” whenever their CI exceeds 85, this does not compensate for the additional work. Moreover, since the excess CI is usually a result of increased student numbers in sections, this has a negative impact on student learning and could mean that fewer sections are being opened which generates less work for other teachers in the department.
Although it is the College’s responsibility to ensure that teachers are informed when they are assigned a workload above 85 CI, we recently communicated with all coordinators to ask them to keep an eye on the workloads of teachers in their departments.
If you are assigned a workload that is projected to be above 85 CI, we ask that you contact the DTU as soon as possible. In addition, it is important to keep track of the number of students registered in your course, particularly at the beginning of semester, as additional students in your course can lead to your CI exceeding the 85 CI threshold. As a reminder, you can use the CI calculator to estimate your CI.
CSN Campaign – Vraiment Public
The CSN’s Vraiment Public campaign aims to raise awareness about the impact of increasing privatization in health care and social services. The campaign argues that no-one should be making a profit on sickness, and that the government needs to put a stop to privatization and invest in public services to enable them to meet the needs of the public.
So far in 2024, 744 physicians have opted out of Quebec’s public health insurance system, compared with just 12 doctors in all of the rest of Canada. Closer to home, a new private clinic has recently opened in Alexis Nihon.
The campaign’s newsletter, available in both English and French , includes more information both about the need for this campaign as well as ways to participate. In particular, the CSN is organizing a rally in Trois-Rivières on November 23rd – if you are able to attend, you can register using the QR code in the newsletter.
Save the Date!
Note: the DTU’s annual party celebrating new perms and retiring teachers will be held at the end of semester in May 2025.