Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their final new applications report for August 2024. In it was an application regarding unionbusting.
I mean, technically, the application didn’t say “unionbusting”, but it’s what it amounts to.
Last month, the NAIT Academic Staff Association began negotiating with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology on their new collective agreement.
Their most agreement expired two months ago, at the end of June. It was settled in November 2022, more than three years after their previous agreement ran out.
The first day of negotiations for the new contract was on 10 July, during which time, the NASA bargaining team had to use vacation time to attend. NAIT is also insisting on limiting silent participation in the process by NASA members who aren’t on the bargaining team, a well as wanting to bargain only during the day, which will cost NASA “as much as $200,000 per year”.
NAIT’s initial proposal include 35 concessions they want their workers to make, including the following:
- Teaching larger classes
- Taking on 40% of the cost for extended health benefit premiums. Currently, NAIT covers 100% of the cost.
- Taking away worker veto power on changing benefit pan entitlements
- Increasing scheduled instruction hours for post-diploma programmes
- Removing worker involvement from the highest level of the workload review process
NASA responded with asking for smaller class sizes, lower scheduled instruction hours for all programmes, and protection against instructional assistants from taking away teaching from NASA members.
The workers also proposed a 25% wage increase in the first year, as well as 10% in the second year. This is to make up for years of increases below inflation. For example, they received no wage increases between 2 July 2016 and 31 March 2023. That’s nearly 7 years!
And when they did get a wage increase, it was a measly 1.25%.
NAIT has refused to table a wage proposal, insistent on introducing it later in the process, after the two parties have settled on a large chunk of the non-monetary items.
The first bargaining session was held virtually, and many NASA members attended as observers. At the end of the session, NAIT representative told those attending that they would be required to take their attendance out of their vacation time.
This is an odd position to take, given that the most recent collective agreement states that “instructors are responsible for completing all components of their workload and have the flexibility to perform work as their assigned schedule allows.”
Just to be clear, NAIT wants to hold bargaining sessions during the day but if NASA members attend those sessions (because they’re not held outside of working hours), then they must use their vacation time.
These practices hinder NASA’s ability to follow an open bargaining process, and they consider it “a form of receding horizon bargaining”, which they indicated in their application to the ALRB. They also claim in their application that it interferes with their ability to represent its members.
The ALRB will be hearing this complaint on the 8th and 9th of October, simultaneously with their hearing on a claim from NAIT filed earlier this year that NASA is taking part in bad faith bargaining.
Since the ALRB doesn’t archive their new applications reports, I’ve included a copy of this week’s report below.
