Dear members,
Classes, COVID, and the consequences of restructuring are keeping us all very busy. Here are some things that I thought you’d like to know about right away.
U of A’s COVID-19 Vaccination Directive
As we continue to adapt to how COVID rules affect our work, the AASUA has prepared a short FAQ on the Vaccine Directive recently put out by the University administration. You can find it on our website here. Please support the health of our colleagues and students.
Bargaining Town Hall
We will be holding a virtual Bargaining Town Hall on Wednesday, October 13, from 12:00 to 13:30 pm. Please come along to get the lowdown on where we are with respect to bargaining, and to ask any questions you have. We will post the Zoom meeting link shortly.
Parkland Institute's PSE Report
The Parkland Institute has just released a report, Road Map or Road Kill?, which responds to the Alberta government’s report from April titled Alberta 2030. The Parkland report identifies the true value of fully funding the province’s post-secondary education sector – in terms of sustainability, student access, and its impact on the provincial economy. I encourage you to look at it. You can find the Parkland report here (https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/roadmap_or_roadkill) and download the PDF report here.
Wear black
You may have already heard that this Friday, October 8, is a sad day for our university community. On this day, all remaining in-house custodial services will be outsourced to a private contractor. This means that all of the NASA members who have been performing this work for years are losing their jobs. AASUA joins NASA in condemning this move as a failure of the University administration to support the university community. The unwillingness of President Flanagan to even engage with over the process, despite being asked to do so by over 1000 members of this community, bodes very poorly for the future of our institution.
On Friday, we ask AASUA members to wear black to mark this day. Wear black in solidarity with our non-academic colleagues. Wear black to recognize the long service of those people our administration is abandoning. Wear black to be more visible and to push back against such actions.
For more information, you can visit NASA’s website (https://www.nasa.ualberta.ca/) or follow them on Twitter (@UnionNASA) or Instagram (nasatheunion).
Tim Mills
Acting President