Why is AU needlessly escalating bargaining tensions by bringing back their union-busting lawyer?

Over the past year, AU and AUFA have made real, tangible progress in bargaining, working collaboratively on multiple contract articles that has resulted in making mutually satisfactory improvements to our Collective Agreement.

But last week, all of that changed. AUFA proposed including gender and sexuality into our employment equity language in Article 26 of our Collective Agreement. This article states both parties will work to recruit, retain, and promote racialized and disabled staff in the workplace. Gender and sexuality are not mentioned in the article as stands, and AUFA identified this as an important gap to fix, particularly with the trend of ideologically conservative governments targeting universities.

Disappointingly, and puzzlingly, AU responded to our proposal with with callous disinterest. Also disappointing and puzzling is AU’s continued insistence on its right to remove members from their union, to surveil and monitor staff, and to forcibly relocate staff. With the teams headed for informal mediation, AU has doubled down on these unhelpful actions by returning the deeply unpopular lawyer Chantel Kassongo, replacing Wally Gloeckler as their co-lead negotiator. This is despite earlier assurances they would not as a gesture of ‘goodwill’.

These are all decisions taken by AU’s most senior leadership, likely the President and Chief Human Resources Officer. They could easily make different decisions, and have decided not to do that.

We are concerned Ms. Kassongo’s return will make it more difficult for this table to hammer out a fair deal or to secure labour peace for the next 4 years. She represented Athabasca University to AUFA in bargaining for over a decade, resulting endless status quo contracts. This past year has been the most productive round of bargaining in the past decade, with many improvements signed by both parties. We never saw this when Ms. Kassongo led bargaining. A 2019 blog post explores her approach in bargaining, as well as history of being hired for union avoidance work.

Re-hiring Ms. Kassongo and her thoroughly unproductive ways, needlessly escalating tension at the bargaining table, and reanimating zombie strategies that marked the failures of past AU leaders are not pathways to success for the employer. Changing a personality at the table does not correct the problem of untenable decisions from AU’s leadership.

Bargaining is ultimately about leverage, AUFA’s leverage in these negotiations is unchanged. We are confident in our proposals and the support of our membership. AUFA is eager to work with newly-appointed mediator Deborah Howes towards a collective agreement.