Speak Out Against De-Designation of AUFA Members

Here is a request from the faculty members of Athabasca University sent out via CAUT mailing list. CUFA supports AUFA at the bargaining table and you also have the opportunity to express your support as per the request below:

Dear fellow CAUT members,

You may recall providing pivotal support to Athabasca University Faculty Association (AUFA) in 2020, when our employer wanted to remove professional members from the union in a process called de-designation. Your letters showed AU that postsecondary workers stand together as a united front, and de-designating AUFA members would threaten AU’s reputation among institutions that accept our courses for transfer credit. Thanks to these efforts, AU tempered its language around de-designation.

But unfortunately, AU is at it again: The employer’s bargaining team has said they are “not interested” in our proposal to add protections against de-designation into our collective agreement. However, designation consistently emerges as a core priority for AUFA members. Since 2020, AU’s removal of positions has led to the exclusion of over 40 positions that would have historically held union rights. In an association with approximately 400 members, this is a major hit.

So, we are asking you to take a small action to encourage AU’s leadership to take our proposal seriously. We have a letter-writing tool established to send key AU decision makers an email. When our representatives at the table are being ignored, we need many voices to demonstrate how important this issue is for not just our members but also the broader postsecondary community!

Follow this link to go directly to the letter writing tool: https://win.newmode.net/canadianassociationofuniversityteachers/maintainathabascauniversityfacultyassociationscurrentmembership-1

For more context, please see this new blog post: https://aufa.ca/blog/2025/10/17/lets-break-the-five-year-stalemate-on-designation

Please do share this with your colleagues and friends. Together, we can show AU that our struggles are all connected, and we stand united against union busting.

In solidarity,

Kate Finegan (she/her)

Advocacy Lead

Athabasca University Faculty Association