In late July, AUFA received a revised designation policy from AU. The revised policy appears to continue to carve out most current members of AUFA (roughly 67% of the membership). AUFA provided a response this week.
Further IT exclusions
One of the frustrations of this consultation process is that AU refuses to discuss the implications of the policy (i.e., what will it mean in practice). AU has alternated between saying they don't know what the implications of the policy will be and then, when they get caught admitting they do know, they just refuse to answer any further questions.
This has made meaningful consultation with AU essentially impossible. One result of AU refusing to explain their policy is that the full implications can be difficult to know. For example, it was only while reviewing the most recent version of the policy that AUFA noticed that AU was also proposing incorporating exclusions under the Public Service Employee Relations Act (PSERA).
PSERA is legislation that governs employment relationships between AU and its non-designated-academic staff (i.e., it applies to AUPE and CUPE, not AUFA). PSERA specifically excludes “systems analysts” from union membership. AU has included this exclusion in its designation policy. The implications of including this exclusion are complicated but, as best AUFA can work out, this inclusion means:
Systems analysts would be excluded from AUFA by the policy.
The definition of systems analyst is extremely broad and could exclude everyone in IT.
IT is about to be significantly expanded as a result of AU’s announced restructuring.
If the designation policy excludes IT staff from AUFA, IT staff would fall under the ambit of PSERA (because they would no longer be AUFA members).
Under PSERA, IT staff would be precluded from being a member of any union, including AUPE.
Using PSERA exclusions to make designation decisions is inappropriate because they are exclusions the Legislature did not apply to designated academic staff. And including PSERA exclusions in the draft policy entails some rather sneaky knock-on effects. Basically, AU’s approach is deeply underhanded.
Going forward
So far, AU has refused to even acknowledge letters from the majority of professors and the majority of AUFA members who will be excluded by the proposed policy. AU has also refused to consult in good faith or meaningfully alter their policy proposal.
AUFA has little expectation that our response to the July draft will yield any substantive shift in AU’s position prior to the Board of Governor’s reviewing the policy on September 11.
AU’s unwillingness to alter its position suggests that AUFA will need to (1) move forward with its legal strategy should the BoG approve the policy, and (2) engage in more public forms of pressure to heighten the cost to AU of any de-designations.
Bob Barnetson, Member
Membership Engagement Committee