National President Judy Darcy called on Alberta members to rise up and build a labour and people’s coalition against the Klein government’s latest attacks on labour rights.
“This is the thin edge of the wedge,” said Darcy at the Alberta division convention. “When you combine Bill 12 with the threat to tear up the collective agreements of health care workers in the Mazankowski report, you can be sure that the carnage in British Columbia is coming to Alberta.”
Bill 12 is the Alberta legislation that trampled rights of teachers, taking away their right to strike and imposing arbitration. The Mazankowski report recommends that barriers to health care ‘reform’ – including union contracts – be eliminated.
“In British Columbia, the Campbell government is going after the collective agreements of public sector workers with surgical precision. To implement health care privatization, the Klein government has already targeted the collective agreements of health care workers,” says Darcy.
“We will not allow them to pick us off one at a time. We are sending a message to the government that if they even consider tearing up our collective agreements they will be taking on all of CUPE and the entire labour movement in Alberta.”