Solidarity picket and shifting offers at U of A
On Friday, 20 AUFA members joined about 200 academic and non-academic staff at a lunch-hour picket at the University of Alberta. The academic and non-academic staff associations have been frustrated by threats of rollbacks and a lack of progress at the table. Thanks to these AUFA members, who spent their lunch hour showing solidarity. Faculty members from MacEwan and NAIT were also in attendance.
The U of A denied staff permission to picket on campus, so an initial rally was held on the sidewalk on 87th Avenue. U of A workers then proceeded to lead a march though campus, chanting “Whose campus? Our campus!” before rallying in the quad.
On the same day, the U of A’s admin posted a surprise new offer to its faculty association. The nub of the U of A’s proposed settlement is:
A four-year salary freeze, ending in June of 2024.
Further negotiations to slow the growth of faculty salaries over their career. Absent success (i.e., revenue neutral solution) by February, the whole offer becomes void.
Hard salary caps for lecturers (i.e., teaching-only faculty).
All other demands for rollbacks would be withdrawn.
This shift away from the U of A’s early threats of massive rollbacks tell us a couple of things:
Mandates have likely changed: The government has altered its secret mandate to the U of A’s administration (requiring salary rollbacks). Rumours suggest this mandate change is sector-wide, although we cannot yet confirm this. These same rumours suggest the new mandate is a series of wage freezes to spring of 2023 (cynically right before the next election), when there would be a small cost-of-living bump. This increase likely tracks the 1.25% increase AUPE accepted for government workers.
Mandates change with pressure: What this tells us is that government interference in the collective bargaining process is not set in stone. Widespread UCP unpopularity and growing labour unrest likely means the UCP is hoping to avoid public-sector strikes by offering workers tiny increases. Additional pressure on public sector employers and the government may well result in further mandate changes.
Progress is modest: The U of A’s new offer (four zeros) is better than its most recent offer (-3% and then three zeros). But, in the context of inflation of 4% or more per year, this still entails a large loss of purchasing power.
Bad offers are a framing strategy: Proposing a series of harsh rollbacks only to walk away from most of them is a clear employer strategy. Its purpose is to frame a lousy offer as some kind of victory of workers (because we avoided an even worse offer), even though the actual offer is still lousy. The countermove to this employer strategy is maintaining a credible strike threat, forcing employers to move off their slightly-less-lousy offer to one that actually benefits workers.
The Association of Academic Staff: University of Alberta (AASUA) has filed an unfair labour practices complaint against the U of A regarding this offer. The crux of the complaint is that the U of A allegedly launched an end-run around the faculty association and is attempting to negotiate directly with the membership. The facts, according to the faculty association are:
The last bargaining date was November 10, with no dates expected until the new year.
The employer phoned the AAUSA bargaining chair late in the day on November 25 (as the chair was getting on a plane) and verbally explained a new offer would be coming by email. The union arranged a meeting of its bargaining team for today (November 29) to review the offer.
Without notice to the union or any further discussion with the AASUA bargaining chair, the employer then posted the offer publicly on November 26, claiming that the offered had been ”tabled”.
This behaviour, according to the union, is not bargaining in good faith. The offer was never presented at the bargaining table and the union was not given sufficient opportunity to review and understand the offer and communicate it to its members. In effect, the employer is interfering with the union’s ability to represent its members. The sequence of events suggests that this was an intentional effort to undermine the union.
While the AASUA does not speculate about what the U of A hopes to achieve through this behaviour, one possibility is that the U of A is laying the groundwork for a proposal vote. Alberta’s Labour Relations Code allows each side one opportunity per round of bargaining to present an offer directly to the other side for a vote. If accepted, the offer becomes the new contract.
The subtext of the U of A’s November 26 communication is “this deal will let you avoid a strike.” What gets lost in that message is that the deal requires the faculty to take (another) wage freeze, slow salary growth, and throw teaching-only faculty under the bus. Making members aware of these important trade-offs and the corrosive effect of the employer’s wedge tactics is one of the roles of the union and, in part, why unions get so shirty when employers communicate directly with members.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, AUFA’s bargaining team returns to the table on November 30th. AUFA continues to wait for AU to table the 14 articles that it withheld from its opening offer, including its monetary position. Progress is unlikely until AUFA can see and evaluate AU’s full offer. AUFA also continues to wait for the Alberta Labour Relations Board to hear the unfair labour practice complaint AUFA filed in September about AU’s unwilling to present a full offer.
Bob Barnetson, Chair
Job Action Committee
