All BCIT Part-Time Studies (PTS) employees–or Auxiliary Employees, as they are called in the FSA-BCIT Collective Agreement–with the following types of contracts are FSA members covered by the Collective Agreement: Instructor, Lab Assistant, Marker, Curriculum Development, PTS Administration. The Collective Agreement establishes your employment rights as a worker at the Institute. Some of these rights are unique to our members in PTS, some are universal, and some don’t apply to members working exclusively in PTS. Applicable rights include rates of pay, a grievance process, and (for PTS instructors) the right to normally be rehired.

Our members in PTS are encouraged to participate in FSA meetings, committees, and events. We also hold two positions on the FSA Board of Directors for members in PTS, known as Directors, Associate Members.

The FSA’s Caucus on Part-Time Studies (COPTS) was created to support members in PTS and facilitate their contributions to the Union. COPTS enhances participation by member participation in in solving issues faced by auxiliary workers, provides guidance to the FSA regarding issues facing members in PTS, , and influences the direction of FSA policy. COPTS is listed on our main committees page; here is the caucus’s terms of reference. Please let us know if you’re interested in joining.

Article 5.2.5.2.8 of the Collective Agreement gives the first right to teach a course to the individual who authored it, so long as they were not paid to do so by BCIT. Article 7.4 ensures that an employee who “creates, develops, acquires or introduces” course materials retains ownership over them. When BCIT pays someone to author a course, the Institute may claim ownership over those course materials. In such cases, BCIT may also deny the creator the right to use the materials at other institutions or online.

Instructors who plan to develop and introduce a new course, whether on their own or under contract with BCIT, first should obtain a written understanding with their Associate Dean that acknowledges that the course, and all its associated materials, will belong exclusively to the author. Course authors should expect adequate compensation for any rights over course materials claimed by BCIT. When being paid to develop a course, authors should insist that the agreement clearly sets out any rights that they retain over its materials.

Contact the FSA if you have any questions about the ownership of course materials. Please also note that our national affiliate the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) provides copyright information on their website.

In our 2020 round of bargaining, the FSA won a pooled Professional Development (PD) fund for our members working in PTS without access to other PD funding. The 10.11 PTS PD Fund is for PTS members working on Instructor/Lecturer, Lab Assistant/Demonstrator, Curriculum Development and Administration contracts. The fund provides $210,000 annually for use by members on these employment contracts towards professional development ineligible for Article 10.3 funds. The Part-Time Studies Professional Development Committee administers the funds and executes calls for submissions.

In our 2020 contract, the FSA won what’s known as the Pooled Sick Leave Fund. This was created for eligible PTS Instructors/Lecturers who are unable to teach due to an illness. BCIT contributes $25,000 per year to this fund, which can be accessed on a first come, first serve basis. To be eligible for access to the sick leave fund, Instructors must meet criteria established in the Letter of Understanding (p. 153 of 2022 CA).

To access the fund, PTS Instructors/Lecturers should report their sick time to their department and a PTS Sick Leave form will be completed and sent to Disability Management in BCIT Human Resources.

For other questions about the PTS Sick Leave Fund, please contact BCIT Human Resources.

A provincial five (5)-day sick leave minimum was enacted into the Employment Standards Act (ESA) in 2022 and applies to our members working in PTS. If some members have already drawn at least five (5)-days on the PTS Sick Leave Fund and it becomes exhausted, the FSA believes other members are still able to access sick days under the ESA to a maximum of five (5).

Any days drawn from the PTS Sick Leave Fund count toward the provincial minimum. For example, if a member in PTS has taken two (2)-days paid sick leave from the Fund, they still have three (3) available under the ESA if the Fund is empty.

Please also note that for the ESA, sick time is counted in days and not hours.

Snow days, or other class cancellations due to campus closures, are inconvenient for all members but can be particularly problematic for members teaching PTS courses. While scheduling an in-person make-up class may seem like the most obvious solution, this may cause other problems where students have commitments that prevent them from attending. Providing students with a take-home class–where they complete specific readings, submit exercises, participate in peer reviews, and will be counted absent for a class if they don’t–is a great alternative. Some instructors make small but critical revisions to the overall course schedule such as combining two topics or adding an extra reading/exercise to each class. If the snow day occurred on a scheduled test day, the test can be moved to another day in the existing schedule and one of the above methods used to make up the bumped class.

Please review FSA’s Part-Time Studies Guide for additional resources which you may find useful.