Remote Work Requests, Part II

If you do, indeed, need a remote work agreement, remember that requests for remote work can happen at any time and requests can be made by both faculty and staff. For more details about how to request remote work, see our blog post. 

For Academic Professionals who work under OAA, we pushed back on the Provost’s “Principles for Remote Work” for Academic Professionals sent to supervisors on or about August 16, 2021. Specifically, the principles violated the process for determining a remote work agreement outlined in our contract. We were able to have OAA amend the principles and ensure that the process for determining remote work agreements are in compliance with our contract. The most important change to these principles is that they no longer require a certain number of days to be worked on campus. Instead, you can work with your supervisor to determine what works best for you and the University. Please reach out if there are any issues or if you have yet to receive a copy of the updated OAA principles from your supervisor.

Throughout the summer, we have done our best to keep tabs on what members were most concerned about as we all prepared for the return to campus. Nearly 300 of you responded to our flash survey two weeks ago. From this we learned that many members had requested remote work or teaching schedules, or intended to submit such requests. This includes 90% percent of Academic Professionals and almost half of tenure-line faculty. Fewer non tenure-line faculty made such requests (just over one-third), and we have been reaching out to those who have asked for assistance from the union. Our aim is to ensure that members do not encounter unwarranted hurdles when they determine that remote work is necessary for the health and well-being of themselves and those around them. Please reach out if you need support in this area. We were also gratified to see that over 90% of our survey respondents expressed satisfaction with the union’s advocacy in making sure that the university remains attentive to member concerns as we transition back to on-campus work.