Over the last two weeks of November, a team of sixteen AUFA volunteers engaged in a telephone survey of 100 randomly-selected members. The purpose of the survey was to have individual conversations with AUFA members, gather information for bargaining, and to understand the general state and morale of the members in advance of bargaining.
The survey was divided into three sections. The first was a set of environmental questions, which attempted to capture members’ overall morale and their feelings toward their jobs, the university, and the union. The second was a set of bargaining questions, which attempted to gauge the level of support for a number of potential items to bring to the table this spring. The third section asked members to provide additional comments to help us get a deeper understanding of the numbers as well as to identify issues or items that we didn’t think to ask about.
Due to the sensitive nature of bargaining, the responses to bargaining questions will only be shared with the AUFA bargaining team. However, we are happy to share the environmental questions and results publicly, along with summaries of the comments and demographics breakdowns.
Survey Method
The survey was delivered by telephone to a random sample of 100 members, which is 23.8% of the current membership. Additional random members were added to the sample when some on the original call list could not be reached or declined. The result was 100 responses out of 135 attempts. AUFA membership data was taken from the reports HR provides to AUFA, as of November 1st.
The survey was delivered over a short timeline of two and a half weeks to mitigate against the risk of major news developments skewing responses. The sample of 100 members was to ensure the survey could be completed efficiently and quickly, with future surveys planned.
Responding members were also compared to AUFA demographics by department, location, and if they were academic or professional. The demographic breakdown of the sample ended up closely matching our actual member population, which is a good sign for the survey results.
Results
The following five statements were read to the respondents, who ranked their answers on a five-point scale: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. Comments were solicited for particularly strong responses.
The statements were determined by the MEC, with one question about overall job satisfaction, three questions about common concerns at AU (trust, safety, and respect), and one question about the member’s view of AUFA. Some of the statements referenced senior leadership, which has been used by AU to mean excluded managers above director level, such as the AU Executive Team and Associate Vice Presidents.
Environment Question Results
The chart below illustrates how these numbers break down into three simplified categories.
Environment Question Results, Combined (n=100)
Overall Observations
The AUFA members we surveyed are generally happy to come to work and extremely happy with their union, with several members offering praise for AUFA’s handling of the last round of bargaining and its communication to members. Distrust for senior leadership is the most significant concern for AUFA members, followed by a lack of respect and a hesitancy to share contrarian opinions.
Comments
Comments provided were analyzed to identify common themes. The most popular themes were, in order:
Disingenuous Communications
The most frequently cited complaint was about the substance and tone of communications from AU’s senior leadership. More charitable comments described the communications as superficial and devoid of content, while many more described the communications as disingenuous, putting forth a pleasant façade while major changes were planned in complete secrecy.
Contempt for Staff
There were repeated mentions that AU senior leadership has open contempt for its staff. Many members believe that their work is not well understood, their opinions are ignored, and their motives considered suspect. It seems that staff who historically had input into major AU activities are now cut out and that decisions are increasingly being made behind closed doors.
Mismanagement
Several commenters stated that AU is being mismanaged, with a leadership that does not understand AU, the staff, or the students. Additional complaints were about excessive red tape, decisions which are irresponsible and foolish, and that published plans are either incoherent or doomed to fail.
Punitive Environment
Several commenters shared that they felt they were vulnerable to repercussions from management if they spoke out, or that their work environments were toxic.
Demographic Information
The data was examined by location, years of service, department, and whether the respondents were academic or professional. While sharing too much detail could compromise respondents’ confidentiality, there are some noteworthy features.
Athabasca
The Athabasca location (n=24) showed strongly negative responses on morale questions, with 75% distrust in senior leadership and 63% feelings of disrespect.
Years of Service
Negative responses were more or less likely depending on the number of years the respondent had served at AU. For example, 70% of AUFA members with over 20 years experience did not trust current AU leadership, compared with 25% of members who have been at AU for under two years.
Departmental
The table below shows the breakdown of departments by AUFA members. As there are 100 responses, the response by department is also a straight per cent of total responses. Departments with fewer than 10 respondents were aggregated into an “other departments” category.
AUFA Membership vs Survey Responses by Department
We identified the following observations on where a department’s responses differed noticeably from the total responses:
Information Technology and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences both had highest mistrust in senior leadership with 63% and 58% disagreeing with question 2. In IT, 50% of respondents reported feeling disrespected by senior leadership.
In the Faculty of Health Disciplines (FHD), 90% agreed they could share contrarian opinions should they arise, which was the highest of all departments.
Faculty of Science and Technology and FHD tended to answer neutrally where other departments disagreed.
Conclusion
A clear narrative emerged from the comments: although approximately a third of surveyed AUFA members are generally happy with the current state of affairs at AU, the remaining two thirds vary from conflicted to extremely unhappy at AU. For many members, there seems to be a disconnect between their satisfaction with and commitment to their daily work and their dissatisfaction with the behaviour of AU’s senior leadership.
The high level of support for AUFA is a positive finding for this committee. As a union, we will likely be facing many challenges over the next several months, and the active participation of the membership will be essential for defending our rights and improving our working conditions. Members interested in volunteering for various tasks as they arise are encouraged to reach out to the Membership Engagement Committee at engagement@aufa.ca.
We would like to thank the volunteers for their hard work in achieving these results, and the participants for their willingness to engage.