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Local bargaining underway for post-secondary instructors - BC General Employees' Union (BCGEU)


Bargaining for local collective agreements is now underway for post-secondary instructors. Please read this bulletin for details and, if you haven't already, provide our union with your personal contact information in the BCGEU Member Portal.

Negotiation status

When we last wrote to you on October 26, we had reached a tentative common collective agreement with the Post-Secondary Employers' Association (PSEA). Highlights of the agreement are outlined in our previous bulletin

Once ratified, the common agreement will cover BCGEU members working as instructors at five of our employers: Camosun College, Coast Mountain College, Northern Lights College, Okanagan College, and Selkirk College. 

Before ratification voting of the common agreement can proceed, each of the above local tables must reach a tentative local agreement. Bargaining of these local agreements has been scheduled for the following dates:

  • Camosun College: January 12-13 and January 30-February 3
  • Coast Mountain College: January 30-February 3
  • Northern Lights College: November 21-25
  • Okanagan College: TBD; possibly January 2023
  • Selkirk College: November 21-22 and November 28-December 2

We, your Instructors Bargaining Council (IBC), will be meeting December 5-6 in Burnaby to continue coordinating across all units, share ideas and strategize on common issues.

When will ratification voting happen?

As your IBC (the elected chairs of the five local bargaining committees), we have agreed in our protocol to coordinate the timing of our ratification voting for when all five tables have reached their tentative local agreements. We do this to demonstrate our solidarity with each other and to the employers. 

This means that ratification voting for both the common agreement and the local agreements will happen at the same time, sometime in 2023 given scheduled bargaining dates above.

For a reminder of the bargaining process, review this infographic and this explainer video.

Why does bargaining take this long?
Local tables bargain local agreements that address issues specific to your institution. Many of these issues are significant and important for us, your local representatives, to try and resolve and take some time as a result.

When will wage increases take affect?

Although the compensation package (under the 2022 PSEC Shared Recovery mandate) was settled in the tentative common agreement, no wage increases will be available until local agreements are ratified. However, once ratified, wage increases will be retroactively applied back to April 1, 2022.

What about members working as instructors at VIU and BCIT?

Members at VIU or BCIT are only covered by their local agreements – not the common agreement – as their employers do not participate in bargaining the common agreement. However, in solidarity with the other five bargaining committees, your elected bargaining representatives (Dean Cadieux of VIU and Erich Moeller of BCIT) continue to participate in our bargaining council.

At this time, the BCIT bargaining committee is in bargaining and the VIU bargaining committee is preparing to table its proposals to the employer. Ratification of these agreements will be independent of the five units covered by the common agreement.

Important: Make sure our union has your personal contact info!

As bargaining proceeds, we will need to distribute more information to you that may not be appropriate to send through your employer-provided email address. Please ensure that we have your personal contact information by logging in to the BCGEU Member Portal herebefore your local table bargaining begins. Please encourage your coworkers to do the same.

In solidarity,

Your Post-Secondary Instructors Bargaining Committee (IBC) 



UWU/MoveUP