A major reorganization of the university IT department, called the IT Optimization, has recently been revealed in full. This reorganization is a consolidation of most IT functions in AU into the core IT department, affecting around 60 AUFA members.
HR began meeting with AUFA to discuss the reorganization late last year, clearly requesting that AUFA work with, rather than against, HR in this process. AUFA representatives consistently attended meetings in good faith and expected the same from HR. Although initial meetings were positive, the information became increasingly vague and inconsistent as time passed.
It finally took a concerted effort of AUFA members demanding information from HR before the planned futures for all AUFA members were revealed. With these details in hand, it is clear that the IT Optimization is being used as a way to carve some members of IT out of the bargaining unit.
Exclusions and designation
The first few drafts of the designation policy included the explicit exclusion of managers, and potential exclusion of IT staff. This language was removed last August after a threatened transfer credit boycott. The IT optimization was originally slated for release in September 2020, but was delayed until 2021, after the policy rewrite. HR have repeatedly stated that the optimization and designation policy had nothing to do with one another.
In the optimization lead-up, HR consistently led AUFA to believe managers would remain in the union, and that AUFA jobs would remain AUFA jobs. Unexpectedly, multiple manager jobs were posted as excluded positions last week. This is in addition to a new unit of security professionals who will all be excluded. Professional managers and IT security positions have been in AUFA for as long as AU has had those roles. Several AUFA managers have had their original positions abolished and must now choose between a demotion to a lesser role, or applying on an excluded position, which both looks suspiciously like their old AUFA job and entails a significant loss of benefits.
HR are now asserting that the application of the Designation as Academic Policy is the reason these positions are excluded. As the policy would exclude all professionals and academic coordinators, it shows that the policy is being selectively applied to new positions by AU. In effect, management is determining who gets union rights.
Bad faith, worse communications
Plans for the IT Optimization changed a few times without AUFA or affected staff being clearly informed, such as the decision to no longer include technical course production jobs in the reorganization. The complete lack of clear communication to affected staff became so bad that AUFA was forced to do employer communications for them, meeting with HR to receive incoherent information, interpret it, and then send it to the affected staff.
Vitally, in a November 24th meeting and in several meetings thereafter, HR asked AUFA how AU should resolve contests for new managerial positions. AUFA met with IT staff and then recommended a hiring committee with seniority as a tie breaker. HR did not respond to our recommendation, and instead just excluded the manager positions.
AUFA made multiple recommendations about working with, rather than without, affected staff to create the new jobs. Instead, AU surprised AUFA by deciding that it would use redundancy language for the optimization. This, in effect, means that all affected IT members will lose their jobs and be ‘redeployed’ into a new position determined by IT leaders. This allowed IT to draft the positions without any input from affected staff, a requirement under our reclassification language normally used for changing professional jobs.
Connection with bargaining
The recent opening proposal from AU includes attacks on most professional rights, including professional freedom, right to appeal, research and study leave, and the right to request position evaluations. The proposed elimination of position evaluation language would ensure that IT staff have no say in their job descriptions. This is so even though assigned duties often differ from job descriptions, and that professional jobs tend to become more senior over time.
HR did not use position evaluation in the reorganization for this reason, as using this language would require consulting IT staff about what they wanted in their careers. If AU is successful in forcing their desired changes to position evaluation language, this would allow AU even more discretion to unilaterally change members’ jobs, and would leave members little recourse to have their positions updated to reflect increasingly senior and complex work expectations.
Finally, excluding union jobs during bargaining is probably illegal. Managers are not only traditionally in AUFA but are explicitly permitted in academic unions under the labour code. Using layoff language to force union members to choose between excluded jobs or demotion—with extremely tight timelines—is an action that is in bad faith.
Analysis and Response
The secrecy, bad faith, and sudden arbitrary exclusions are union busting. It appears AU has adopted a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy with designation changes. The full implementation of these exclusions will weaken AUFA as a union during a bargaining year and is a probable violation of labour law and our collective agreement.
Although labour relations is an adversarial relationship, there is an expectation all parties work in good faith with genuine attempt to resolve issues. This latest attack on AUFA rights is the most egregious in a long established pattern of union-busting at Athabasca University.
AUFA will pursue all available means to stop this attack on our union. AUFA will be updating our existing Unfair Labour Practice complaint (related to the decanal de-designations), potentially filing a second, and investigate filing multiple grievances. As well, the Membership Engagement Committee will be working with the affected members and AUFA’s allies on the best response to attach personal and reputational costs these actions.