More Than 300,000 Alberta Workers Form a United Front

Calling it a historic moment in Alberta labour history, the Alberta Federation of Labour and 26 unions representing more than 300,000 workers on Wednesday announced a “Solidarity Pact” to combat anticipated attacks on workers’ pay and rights.

Standing at a podium flanked by the leaders of more than a dozen unions, AFL president Gil McGowan said they will not allow government- or private-sector employers to use the potential of economic instability from the Trump regime’s trade war against Canada as a pretext to deny workers fair wage increases, or to strip away rights.

“The purpose of the Solidarity Pact is to let employers and governments in this province know that the unions will stand together and fight together — all for one, and one for all.”

The association is called a “Common Front” because it includes unions that aren’t members of the labour federation.

McGowan said unions support the Team Canada approach to defending Canada’s economy and sovereignty. But he said they also will collectively challenge any attempts by any level of government to strip workers of their legal right to strike or in any way undermine workers’ bargaining power.

While unions in Alberta have recently realized significant gains through collective agreements, McGowan said “there are still tens of thousands of workers across the province who need new contracts to keep pace with the skyrocketing cost of living.”

Citing the United Food and Commercial Workers, McGowan said Safeway workers with that union are likely headed for a strike this fall.

“We are signalling that we will support them on the picket lines,” he said, and unions also will support a boycott if one is called.

McGowan provided little detail about how the union’s “Common Front” will translate its promised solidarity into action.

“What we are dealing with is a high-stakes game and in any high-stakes game you don’t reveal your cards,” he said.

The Solidarity Pact could signal new ties among some Alberta labour unions. For example, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees or AUPE, the province’s largest with nearly 100,000 members, is not a member of the AFL, although its president, Guy Smith, stood next to McGowan at Wednesday’s news conference.

“We understood that to realize our full potential as a labour movement we had to reach out beyond the (AFL) so that really is the animating principle for the Common Front,” McGowan said.

“It is about expanding solidarity beyond the traditional house of unions to those that are outside of that umbrella.“

The United Nurses of Alberta recently signed a tentative agreement that provides significant wage and benefit increases for its more than 33,000 members. Long-time UNA president Heather Smith was asked how she can ensure her members will be willing to stand up for members of other unions after the extraordinary physical and emotional demands of dealing with Covid in the workplace for several years.

Smith stressed that her union’s members were not the only frontline workers who were “put through the mill” during COVID. She said nurses and other essential workers, like meat packing plant and grocery store workers, shared the common experience of going from “heroes to zeros.”

During the pandemic they did the work that others could not do, or were unwilling to, but the moment the crisis was over, “there has not been a willingness to respect the value of the work, not just that we did then, but the value of the work that is done every day in our communities.”

“We share more with each other than we are different,” Smith said of other unions, adding that her union members want to see every worker respected and fairly treated in the workplace and at bargaining tables.

AUPE president Guy Smith said the pandemic changed the labour dynamic not just in Alberta, but across Canada and around the world. He said that in his many years in the labour movement he has never seen the “level of anger, frustration and militancy” that he is witnessing now.

“Collectively there has been this consciousness built out of the struggles of the heroes on the front line of Covid in health care, but also in government services and many other areas that our members work in,” he said.

Many workers risked their health and even their lives, only to be treated with disrespect by employers. That created frustration and anger, which Smith said continues to build.

“This is what I am saying at the bargaining tables I sit at on behalf of the AUPE; I’m telling the bosses, ‘The mood is different, the times have changed, you need to be prepared for workers who are going to stand strong.’”

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SIGNATORIES TO THE ALBERTA COMMON FRONT SOLIDARITY PACT:

• Alberta Colleges and Institutes Faculties Association (ACIFA)

• Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL)

• Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA)

• Alberta Union of Nurse Practitioners (AUNP)

• Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE)

• Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Locals 569 and 583

• Athabasca University Faculty Association (AUFA)

• Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union (COPE)

• Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) Locals 710 and 730

• Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)

• Civic Service Union (CSU) Local 52

• Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (CAFA)

• Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA)

• International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)

• International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers (IW) Local 720

• International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) Locals 99, 1681, 1722 and 2583

• International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB) Locals 146 and D359

• Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 92

• Mount Royal Staff Association (MRSA)

• Non-Academic Staff Association at the University of Alberta (NASA)

• Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)

• Unifor

• Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) Local 47

• United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401

• United Nurses of Alberta (UNA)

• United Steelworkers (USW) District 3