While we are in the middle of bargaining tensions, the following major announcement was just made in Athabasca a little over an hour ago. Premier Jason Kenney, Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development Nate Horner, and local MLA Glenn Van Dijken announced the following to a packed house in the Athabasca multiplex as transcribed below.
We believe that Athabasca University must be rooted in this community for its long-term future. And so Minister Nicolaides has sent a directive to the volunteer board of this institution that we will amend the regulations of the Athabasca University Act to ensure permanent representation on the AU board of the local Athabasca community. Our cabinet recently just appointed one such individual with two more to come at the next cabinet meeting. Next we have reaffirmed our commitment to the local community and fulfilling the recommendations of the Cotes report, which recommended the university work towards expanding the size of its operation in the town of Athabasca and in Alberta generally.
More specifically, we have directed the board of governors to strengthen its physical presence in the town of Athabasca by consolidating executive and senior administration offices in Athabasca at the earliest possible opportunity. We've also directed the board to develop and implement a comprehensive talent development, attraction, and retention strategy by June 30th of this year, to maintain and grow a broad range of employees in Athabasca, and to develop and implement a reopening strategy for the Athabasca campus to resume most employees working on site, and to allow public access to services like registries, to student support, and specialized services.
These mandates are broad and may be implemented in a variety of ways, however they are significant. This is a direct response to the work of the Keep AU in Athabasca group, a group of locals who have been lobbying for more job growth in the area. AUFA first identified the loss of AU jobs in Athabasca issue in 2015 and has since promoted creating future jobs in the area while respecting the rights of all members who reside outside of Athabasca.
I had the opportunity to ask Minister Nicolaides two questions as paraphrased below:
What will happen to AU staff that reside out of Athabasca?
AU staff outside of Athabasca are not included in the above mandate and that will be for the university to decide. Our assumption is this will mean status quo for all who currently live outside of the area.
We are nearing the first strike vote in AU history, when you speak about incentives to move to Athabasca. Our benefits are excellent incentives, will you commit to reaching a fair deal with AUFA?
His response was that although there is a mandate, negotiations are with the board of governors. However, I hope the desire for the government to get a ‘win’ with Athabasca university will provide incentive for AU to deal fairly with us and avert a strike.
This has significant implications on the many AUFA members still in the Athabasca area as it may mean a return to offices in some form or another. However, the details of the above mandate have not been worked out as this information is very new. There will be more to come, including how this announcement affects our status in bargaining.
David Powell
President