Bargaining Update

Your bargaining team met with the employer for a day of bargaining on May 10. AUFA’s bargaining team is comprised of Jason Foster, Jen Rempel, Bangaly Kaba, Alexa DeGagne and Richard Roach. AUFA’s opening proposal can be found here. AU’s bargaining team is Alain May, Margaret Kierylo, Jessica Butts Scott, Abey Arnaout and their lead spokesperson is external lawyer Chantel Kassongo. AU’s opening proposal can be found here.

We continued to impress upon AU’s bargaining team the importance of presenting their monetary proposals. Not having the employer’s full proposal makes it difficult to make progress in bargaining because AUFA does not know the full extent of what AU is asking for and many non-monetary clauses can have financial implications. AU’s bargaining team continued to refuse to present their monetary proposal and have provided no timeline for when they will.

The two sides spent time discussing two articles but reached no agreement on either. The first part of the day focused on the academic tenure and promotion process. The employer provided a redacted version of an internal auditor’s report evaluating the current process and its perceived shortcomings. AU initially proposed providing the full, unredacted report but wanted AUFA’s team to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to view it. AUFA’s team declined this request because we felt it would limit our ability to be transparent with our members about bargaining discussions.

Many of the report’s recommendations are issues entirely within the control of administration and can be corrected without contractual changes. For example, the report identifies that letters sent from some committees to the VPA recommending promotion are insufficiently detailed. The solution to this is for the VPA to send the letters back for revision (as we might do if a student submitted an incomplete assignment). Notably, the recommendations did not address the significant delays in HR processing promotion applications.

The report appeared to suggest that tenure and promotion processes should be merged and that a permanent central committee should be established to conduct tenure and promotion reviews. The only rationale provided was that it would harmonize AU with other Alberta universities.

Based on the report, the employer asked to discuss a broad restructuring of the tenure and promotion process. AU did not present any specific proposals. In our response, we emphasized that discussions of tenure and promotion should take place in a collegial, institution-wide consultation process. Once broad support for changes is found, a proposal could be brought to the bargaining table to make any necessary amendments to the collective agreement. The discussion ended when we requested they present a specific proposal articulating their preferences. They provided no indication of when or if they will do that.

The latter part of the day was spent discussing each party’s proposals regarding academic and professional freedom. We analyzed both parties proposals in a recent blog post. We made the case that professionals often engage in activity that is equivalent to that of academics and thus deserving of equal protection. Granting such protections entails no cost to AU and would make AU a more attractive place to work. Their team argued that academic freedom is a restricted right for those who have earned it. According to Margaret Kierylo, “academic freedom is very sacred and something that belongs to academics”. She suggested academic freedom is earned by acquiring a PhD. AUFA responded by pointing out that some academics do not have PhDs yet have academic freedom while many professionals have PhDs but no academic freedom. Further, academic freedom flows from the collective agreement, not from what degrees one has. AU’s team also expressed concern that accepting AUFA’s proposal to extend academic freedom would “undermine our standing as an institution” (according to Dr. Kierylo). AUFA respectfully disagreed with that notion.

AU’s team also acknowledged their proposal regarding academic freedom was “cut and pasted” from the definition created by Universities Canada, an organization representing university presidents. Discussion around AU’s proposed definition of academic freedom was unproductive because AU appeared inadequately prepared to answer questions about the meaning of its terms.

We meet again in late May. We hope the employer will present their monetary proposal at that time. We will continue to represent your interests as best we can.

Jason Foster, Chair

AUFA Bargaining Team