Athabasca University faculty wins increase and keeps key benefits

Faculty at Athabasca University have been awarded successive two per cent cost-of-living increases over the next two academic years and have kept key benefits despite the university’s attempts to roll back and suspend them because of tough economic times in the province and at the institution.

The ruling handed down last month was welcome news for staff who are facing uncertain times following the release of a third-party review into the future operations of the university.

That report, while cautioning against any job losses at the university in the short term, suggested that some courses may need to be cut if the university is to survive.

Faculty association president Jolene Armstrong said she and members she represents were relieved at the decision.

“There is relief that our case has been taken seriously and there is a certain validation for the academic world when someone from outside the academic world says, no, these things are integral to a healthy, functioning institution,” she said.

“To be able to have that modest increase to our salaries is most welcome by everybody.”

In trying to make an inabilityto-pay case, the university argued that the “considerable turmoil and uncertainty in Alberta’s economy ought to be considered closely” as to its own “dire financial situation.”

During arbitration, Athabasca University pointed to its 2015-16 deficit of $530,000 and a projected deficit of $3.2 million in the 2016-17 financials as proof of its struggling financial position.

However, at the May 26 board of governors meeting, those projected losses were replaced by a $3.7 million surplus, adding credence to the faculty association’s claim the university’s “dire picture of its financial position is not accurate.”

The association argued the university had a history dating back to 2012-13 of projecting deficits but posting surpluses. In 2012-13 it budgeted a deficit of $1 million but achieved a surplus of $752,000. The following year it projected a $782,000 deficit but achieved a surplus of $3.6 million.

In 2014-15 it budgeted a $22,000 surplus but managed a surplus of $2.5 million. The association also pointed to the university’s accumulated surplus of $6.4 million as of March 2016.

Faculty members also maintained their merit increment payments and kept their $2,000 professional development allowances.

‘MERIT CEILING’

In making its final offer, the university proposed a three-year cost-of-living increase of one per cent, two year per cent and two per cent but it also called for the suspension of merit increment payments to staff in the last two years of the agreement, which would have effectively nullified the last pay increase.

Under the current collective agreement, staff members’ merit increments are awarded at 2.8 per cent of regular salary unless they have reached their “merit ceiling ” at which point the merit increment is capped at two per cent of salary.

A full professor at Athabasca with a starting salary of $112,988 would receive an extra $3,163.66 or, for a professor reaching the two-per-cent merit cap, $2,239.76.

The university insisted “the suspension of merit pay for these two years should not be construed as a devaluation of its employees or their essential role in the institution.”

Arbitrator David Phillips Jones said that “if the university was an entirely private institution, its financial difficulties would be a more compelling argument about ability to pay.”

“Its history of projecting successive deficits is undercut by the reality of actual surpluses at the end of its financial years,” Jones said.

“The existential challenges it faces will have to be (and are being) addressed by it and the provincial government. And for its part, the faculty association will have to recognize that the wage settlement resulting from this final offer selection process may have an impact on future employment at the institution.”

The university estimates that 68 per cent of its operating expenses are salary and benefit related.

Athabasca University president Neil Fassina said the university respects the decision.

“The university put forward an offer that we thought was reasonable and fair,” he said.

“In each round of bargaining we have to take into consideration a complex array of short and long term factors when we go to determine our interests and our needs. When we consider the array of those complex factors we are always going to look to advance our position we believe to be fair and appropriate in that context.”

Fassina said he looks forward to working with the association in the next round of bargaining beginning next year.

“We’ve got a very bright future ahead of us,” he said. “We need to come together on how best to do that because we are all in this together as a collective.”