U of A and AASUA exchange proposals

Posted: November 13, 12:30 p.m.

Yesterday, the University of Alberta bargaining committee tabled their opening proposal with AASUA. The package acknowledges the changing and challenging landscape of the post-secondary sector and at the U of A. 

Read the full Opening Statement from the U of A to AASUA

Highlights from the proposal:

The post-secondary sector is evolving quickly in Alberta, and around the world. At our university alone, the financial pressures we face are significant, with an anticipated 33% cut ($216M) to our institution’s core publicly-funded grant over three years (2019-2022). We are all working hard to address current crises; still, to sustain our excellence in teaching, learning and community engagement, our financial reality needs to be recognized in all our activities, including collective bargaining.

With that context in mind, the university’s proposal includes, over a four-year term, a three percent reduction in salaries in the first year. The proposal also recognizes the university’s need to bring rates of salary and benefit growth in line with current markets and institutional financial realities. The university proposes accomplishing this, in part, by restructuring salary models to slow salary growth over the long-term for full professors, and adjusting benefit sharing costs between the university and employees.

Other key proposals presented to AASUA include:

• Restructuring salary models to increase merit pay to assistant and associate professors, enhancing the university’s ability to attract and retain the best talent 
• Simplifying performance evaluation processes
• Discontinuing the Academic Supplementary Retirement Plan — a benefit that is only available to those earning more than approximately $168K per year
• Enabling the university’s ability to address financial emergencies 
• Updating the collective agreement to include new language from the joint AASUA/Employer Employment Equity Task Force

The university acknowledges that this will be a very challenging round of collective bargaining. We are seeking an agreement that reflects the importance of the work of our academic staff, as well as the realities of the academic sector in Alberta.

The U of A bargaining committee acknowledges and thanks the members of the AASUA bargaining team for their engagement in this important process at a time and circumstance when personal and professional challenges abound. We look forward to continued professionalism, respectful discourse and collegiality as we work together toward a renewal collective agreement.