Dear Members,
The AASUA and Board negotiating teams have met on five separate occasions since our last update at the beginning of February. While the tone at the table has remained largely cordial throughout this period, the employer has begun to dig in their heels a bit more aggressively on a number of issues. In particular, the Board’s team is pushing very hard to increase their management rights and authority, and they have become very resistant to anything that might increase flexibility and rights for members.
I will detail some specific areas of discussion below, but I first want to highlight how concerning it is that the board’s team has approached bargaining in this way. Both parties entered this round of bargaining understanding that the University is facing significant financial challenges. Typically, in negotiations, when an employer comes to the table seeking either wage cuts or wage freezes, they recognize that in order to reach an agreement they will have to make concessions on language. In the absence of even minimal gains to compensation, a union must see substantial positive changes to language before reaching an agreement it can recommend to members.
The Board’s team, however, has not approached this round of bargaining in this manner. Instead of working to facilitate the reaching of a positive agreement on language, the employer has shown next to no interest in AASUA’s proposals. Not only has the employer offered very few concessions on language, they are actually proposing significant changes to existing language that would strengthen management rights and interfere with members’ current rights and their Academic Freedom. Instead of seeing the University as a respectful and collegial community of scholars, the Board appears to be seeking a much more corporate university with strict hierarchical reporting lines and complete management authority to impose parameters of research, year-round teaching schedules, and performance management with absolutely no recourse for members (see details below).
As reported last month, we have reached agreement on new equity language and on new language in the grievance article that provides greater clarity on process and responsibilities. We have reached agreement on language for more appropriate use of student feedback on teaching performance. We have also agreed on positive revisions to probationary periods for APOs changing positions within the University, and the Board’s team has backed off on their proposal to reduce the lowest possible increment from 0.5 to 0.25. It is important to remember that although we may reach “agreement” on some language throughout the process, the parties have agreed to the principle that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.
Some areas where no agreement has been possible include:
• the employer has rejected outright our proposal on Intellectual Property, which would have provided alternative ways for members to commercialize, at their own cost, their patentable intellectual property (PIP);
• the employer has rejected our proposal for opting out of full annual evaluation committee (FEC, LEC, ATSEC) processes.
Proposals made by the employer in an attempt to increase management rights include:
• to eliminate contested cases before the FEC;
• to remove the right of members to appeal incrementation of less than 1.0, except 0d’s;
• to unilaterally assign teaching responsibilities in any two academic terms (including spring and summer);
• to limit allowable research not only to the member’s discipline, but to those parameters set out by a member’s Department and Faculty;
• the ability to overturn any terms or special conditions in existing Letters of Appointment with regard to proportion of teaching, research, and service;
• the ability to unilaterally initiate a performance improvement process applicable to any individual member, independent of the existing annual evaluation process.
In all of these cases, the position of the AASUA bargaining team is not to agree to any further advancement of management rights or the erosion of member rights and Academic Freedom, and we are specifically seeking the ability to grieve teaching assignments going forward. For more details you can see the summary and full-text of our opening proposal, as well as that of the Board of Governors, on the AASUA website here.
We can also report that, on March 5, 2021, the Provost issued notice to AASUA to begin negotiating an Essential Services Agreement (ESA). An ESA is an agreement between both parties that details which workers are essential and expected to continue working in the case of a strike or lock-out. The Alberta Labour Relations Code stipulates that, after impasse is declared in bargaining, there can be no further actions (mediation, lock-out, strike, direct presentation of offers) unless an ESA is in place. The Code legislates that the Board is required to present AASUA with their ESA proposal, which we are currently awaiting.
We have one more joint bargaining session scheduled for March, and are seeking to schedule more meetings for April, May and June.
We will continue to provide regular updates as things develop, and as always, please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or concerns about any of the above.
Sincerely,
Ricardo (on behalf of Executive and the Negotiations Team)