AASUA members to vote on tentative agreement

The University of Alberta and the Association of Academic Staff at the U of A (AASUA) reached a tentative agreement on October 1. With the full agreement now released, AASUA members will vote on it between October 16 and October 21.

For AASUA to ratify the agreement, members would have to vote in a simple majority in favour of the agreement. 

If AASUA members ratify the agreement, it will then go to the General Faculties Council (GFC) Executive Committee for review. Then it will go to the Board of Human Resources and Compensation Committee for recommendation to the Board of Governors (BoG). BoG will have the final vote to fully ratify the agreement.

AASUA held an information town hall on October 15 for its members to provide details about the plan and answer questions. 

In the initial statement released on AASUA’s site, President Gordon Swaters said it was a “hard choice” but that the bargaining team has achieved all it believed it could in this agreement. 

Some of the changes in the tentative agreement include a salary increases of three per cent across the board. The increases will be retroactive to July 2024 and continuing until July 2027. 

AASUA has previously asked for a $4,000 increase across the board retroactive to 2024 in addition to the three per cent increase.

The tentative agreement also sees the per capita funding of AASUA members’ benefits plan increase by three per cent and by $2,000 as of July 2025. The funding will increase by three per cent each year of the agreement.

The agreement would also eliminate the two-tiered salary grid explain/link for academic teaching staff.

Changes to consultation, leaves, determination of workload, and performance evaluations

Other areas of the agreement saw changes as well. The tentative agreement includes more consultation with AASUA before there are changes to policies that affect academic staff members.

The agreement also includes a memorandum of understanding (MOU) around the format of course delivery. It would require the university to engage with the academic staff member before deciding the format of course delivery.

There were changes around suspensions and leaves as well. Under the tentative agreement, academic staff could be suspended from all of their responsibilities, or just some of them. 

Additionally, maternity and parental leaves were “expressly recognized as contributing towards length of service for purposes of determining eligibility for professional leave and sabbaticals,” AASUA’s summary of the agreement said.

A new MOU in the agreement would “allow for Constituency specific Working Groups to benchmark Members’ workload and undertake a comparative study of other Universities (and industry, as applicable),” according to AASUA’s summary.

The tentative agreement would also introduce a Performance Improvement Process after a member’s performance is deemed unsatisfactory or unacceptable. Current processes after unsatisfactory or unacceptable performance may lead to termination.

It changes the evaluation process for tenured staff or those with continuing appointments from annual to biennial.