Warning message

Please note that this page is from our archives. There may be more up-to-date content about this topic on our website. Use our search engine to find out.
All hands are on deck in Alberta as members, staff and Division leaders are going all out to deliver a CUPE victory in the province-wide representation votes in health care.
With 30 member organizers and six regional phone banks, the message that CUPE is the union for health care support workers is building new energy every day. And the campaign got a huge boost June 5 and 6 when CUPE National President Judy Darcy visited facilities in Edmonton and Calgary.
In most health regions support workers are being forced to choose between CUPE and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE). AUPE is the same union found guilty of raiding CUPE members two years ago and subsequently suspended from its parent union and the Alberta Federation of Labour.
The current contest was triggered when the government pared seventeen regional health authorities down to nine and passed Bill 27 to create one bargaining certificate in each region for each of four occupational groups.
But Bill 27 goes even further than that. It opens the door to contract stripping by handing the power to determine the terms and conditions of new collective agreements to the chair of the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB).
While every health care union in Alberta is busy campaigning, it is CUPE that is getting the information out about the long-term threat of privatization and contracting-out in health care.
In Alberta, CUPE members have stopped contracting-out in every sector, while the other union sat back and watched the government privatize the jobs of thousands of their members in provincial public service.
Over the next week, health care workers will receive a ballot in the mail along with campaign material from the unions. They will be asked to cast a vote and mail it back to the ALRB by mid-July.
In the meantime, phones are ringing and people are talking because CUPE is the union that stands up for public health care and for the support workers upon which our health care system relies.
For campaign information and updates visit www.cupealberta.ab.ca.