In this blog, AUFA comments on the Alberta government’s announcement of a major initiative to recentre AU in the Athabasca area. AUFA continues to support AU at a minimum maintaining, or at best expanding, its presence in the Town of Athabasca.

President Scott, in an email to all AU staff, emphasizes that AU’s operations, mission, and mandate vis-a-vis the near-virtual strategy remain unchanged, despite the Alberta premier and Advanced Education minister’s directives at the town hall meeting in Athabasca on March 24.

In a recent AU letter to all Edmonton location-based staff regarding the outcome of their job assessment, most staff members were told they would work permanently from home and asked to accept this change. Per AUFA, this was unintentionally conferring authority on individual staff and the entire process violated labour law.

As a follow-up to President Fassina’s June 2020 ‘Neil’s Notes’, this communiqué outlines AU’s skeletal plan to operationalize the near-virtual strategy. A Near-Virtual Working Group will identify workstreams, development required, and implementation of elements—policy, processes, functions, systems—in three near-virtual phases.

The first public reference to AU’s near-virtual strategy is this June 30, 2020 post by President Neil Fassina, called Neil’s Notes. A Board of Governor-approved motion from May 2020 is referenced, which apparently supports AU’s plans to transition to a near-virtual organizational structure before December 2021. [Incidentally, the motion has never been made public and therefore remains an enigma.]