An Open Letter to Dr. Matt Prineas
Provost, Athabasca University
Dear Dr. Prineas:
We, the undersigned, wish to express our concern with Athabasca University’s proposal to de-designate academic coordinators, professionals, and deans and associated deans. This proposed de-designation will remove approximately 67% of our colleagues from our union.
The current designation policy was established in 1983. Placing professors, academic coordinators, and professionals in the same bargaining unit reflected the integration of our work as well as the small number of AU employees. The inclusion of deans and associate deans in the bargaining unit reflected that these positions are filled temporarily by academics as a form of institutional service.
No clear rationale for this proposal has yet been presented. And none of the historic reasons for having a single AUFA bargaining unit have meaningfully changed.
Breaking up the membership of AUFA will have a number of deleterious effects on AUFA members:
AUFA members who remain in AUFA will have much diminished bargaining power.
Academic coordinators will likely end up in the CUPE unit, will be more vulnerable to AU rolling back their terms and conditions of work, and will be ineligible to participate in the Universities Academic Pension Plan (UAPP).
Professional staff members will likely end up non-unionized, will be more vulnerable to AU rolling back their terms and conditions of work, and will be ineligible to participate in UAPP.
Dean, associate deans and professionals who are managers or directors will likely end up non-unionized, and will be more vulnerable to rolling back their terms and conditions of work, but will remain eligible to participate in UAPP.
These consequences and the timing of this proposal (right before bargaining) suggest AU is using its designation power to improve its bargaining position. This is an illegitimate use of the designation authority.
Both AU’s and AUFA’s recent engagement surveys have documented a significant lack of trust between AU employees and the senior administrator. A step towards rebuilding this trust would be for AU to abandon its proposed changes to the existing designation policy.
Sincerely,
