Spring survey: Rising AUFA support and falling executive trust

Volunteers with AUFA’s Membership Engagement Committee (MEC) completed the spring 2021 member engagement survey. This post provides aggregated results for the general climate questions as well as questions about AUFA’s communication efforts. Blue responses indicate agreement while orange responses indicate disagreement. Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

The survey also asked members about bargaining priorities and their willingness to strike. Bargaining and strike data will be provided to the AUFA executive, as well as the bargaining and job action committees for discussion.

Distrust in the Executive

There was a further drop in agreement that AU’s executive is trustworthy, from 18% in November to 16% in April.

This is the third consecutive drop in trust in the executive since autumn of 2019, when trust was at 30%.

Looking at levels of distrust, 63% of members indicated that they did not trust the executive in April, up from 59% in November and 47% in earlier surveys.

Distrust of the executive increases by duration of service at AU. That said, only 21% of new staff (0-2 years of service) indicate that they trust the executive.

The departure of former president Neil Fassina does not seem to have meaningfully attenuated distrust in the executive. Based upon member comments, the key issues driving distrust includes AU’s ongoing attack on AUFA members’ interests, including its efforts to de-designate AUFA members, AU’s aggressive opening position in bargaining, the mysterious sacking of the former dean of FHD, and the re-organization of IT. This is also reflected in the highest rates of distrust, which are found in FHD (89%), FHSS (80%) and IT (75%).

Member comments suggest widespread frustration with the behaviour of the executive. The executive’s behaviour and their communications were described as absent, invisible, secretive, inconsistent, untrustworthy, and inauthentic. Several members commented that they have given up on the executive based upon their record of over-promising and under-delivering.

Levels of distrust this low have operational implications. For example, AU has had difficulty finding volunteers to sit on its staff engagement committee. Anecdotal comments suggest the reluctance to volunteer reflects disbelief that AU’s efforts are in good faith or will yield a meaningful result. When managers lose virtually all credibility with staff, it becomes difficult to address organizational problems or achieve goals.

Other Climate Questions

There was a drop in agreement around enjoying starting work in the morning, from 79% in November to 64% in April. Comments suggest this drop reflects growing workloads and AU constantly attacking AUFA members. While this survey did not specifically ask about de-designation, many members raised it as a major and continuing issue affecting their morale.

Agreement with the statement that AUFA is doing a good job of representing member interests was 93% in April, an increase from 82% in November. This support is seen across the institution with two only two respondents disagreeing with the statement.

AUFA Blog Readership

Over the past three years, AUFA has moved to using its blog as the primary communication vehicle with members. MEC was interested in assessing readership levels and frequency of reading.

Overall, 69% of members indicated that they always or usually read the AUFA blog. By contrast, only 10% of members indicated that they rarely or never read the blog. The remainder (21%) sometimes read the blog.

There was some variation in readership frequency by area of the institution, with the highest levels of readership in IT, FHD, and FHSS.

Members were also asked for comments about the content of bargaining updates. There was general satisfaction with the content of bargaining updates. Members appeared to appreciate AUFA’s efforts to explain AUFA’s and AU’s proposals in bite-sized chunks.

On behalf of MEC, I’d like to thank the AUFA members who took the time to participate as well as our volunteer callers for their hard work.

If you’d like to provide feedback before then or volunteer to help with engagement activities, please email MEC at engagement@aufa.ca .

Rhiannon Rutherford, Chair

Membership Engagement Committee