RDP reaches deal with AUPE & CUPE, going to mediation with faculty association

“The goal of Red Deer Polytechnic’s negotiations with the three collective bargaining units is to work together to reach a negotiated settlement. Red Deer Polytechnic is pleased to have ratified two of those,” says Mara-Lee Moroz, Executive Director, People and Culture at RDP.

“As Red Deer Polytechnic continues to negotiate with our institution’s Faculty Association, we cannot comment on the specific details of these ongoing negotiations.”

Moroz adds that as a polytechnic, faculty and staff are the backbone of the institution, serving learners with an expanding range of diverse programming.

“Faculty and staff are important members and contributors to central Alberta communities and we look forward to continuing these discussions with the Faculty Association to reach an agreement.”

Ken Heather, Faculty Association President, says mediation is set for July 26 and 27.

“Our major concern remains about changes to how workload is described and managed. They want to take away the ability for me to challenge my workload, whereas currently we have a process we can go through for any new program, existing program and different types of delivery,” Heather explains.

“This is just one of those things where you have to realize you’re standing up for your collective agreement rights, and for what you’re willing to work for or do. With any job action, there will be lasting effects.”

To summarize, Heather says, the association is preparing for any of the possibilities that may come about should mediation fail to yield an agreement.

“We were always optimistic that the institution would want to have labor peace. To go forward and be able to have the page turned with a new agreement in place is important,” says Heather. “Hopefully everyone knows where we all stand so we can go forward to make that happen.”

In the Polytechnic’s words, as of April, they were offering the FA an increase to compensation, while proposing amendments to workload provisions, “to provide a consistent workload norm for comparable programs at Red Deer Polytechnic. The proposal included grandfathering provisions for current Probationary and Continuous Faculty Members. Grandfathering was proposed by the Polytechnic in response to earlier concerns raised by FARDC’s negotiations team with respect to an increase in the workload norms for some program areas and in response to an indication that FARDC Members would not ratify a Collective Agreement with increases to workload.”

As for the CUPE local, membership voted 88 per cent in favour of their new agreement back on May 16, also after having gone to mediation. Local president Trina Carroll says the union wouldn’t accept any of the concessions they were being asked to make, which were largely related to job security and language around layoffs.

With the AUPE local, ratification took place May 31. Summaries on rdpolytech.ca indicate the final outstanding items having been monetary in nature, with most non-monetary items signed off on in June 2021.

If RDP faculty were to strike, it would follow a similar occurrence at the University of Lethbridge, where faculty association members were on strike from about Feb. 10, 2022 through have been on strike for 40 days starting Feb. 10. That was resolved after two rounds of mediation.

Until 2022, there’d never been a strike at an Alberta post-secondary. At Concordia University in Edmonton, 82 faculty went on strike in January. Mount Royal avoided one at the eleventh hour, via mediation in February, and staff at the U of A reached a new agreement in March.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

RDP reaches deal with AUPE & CUPE, going to mediation with faculty association

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