On February 17th the Post Secondary Employers' Association representing the employers and the Federation of Post Secondary Educators and the BC Government and Employees' Union representing the faculty at BC's colleges, university colleges, and institutes reached a settlement of all sectoral issues. The settlement provides for an April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2010 term for the next Common Agreement for faculty. The settlement's compensation package consists of three annual general wage increases of 2.1 % across all steps of the salary scale and three annual labour market adjustment increases of 0.5 % on the top step of the scale, a financial incentive of $ 4,000 per full-time equivalent employee, and a fiscal dividend contingent upon the provincial government budget surplus in 2009-10.
Under the post-secondary sector's two-tier bargaining structure, the local employers and unions will now proceed to bargain at their second-tier tables to reach settlements of their 2007-10 collective agreements by the March 31st deadline for receipt of the financial incentive.
