CUPE will put $500,000 into a campaign to punish the Danielle Smith government for using the notwithstanding clause against workers and others. 

Secretary Treasurer Candace Rennick made the announcement at CUPE Alberta’s convention. Rennick said the union decided to contribute to a campaign with the Canadian Labour Congress.  

“Danielle Smith used the notwithstanding clause against Alberta teachers to end their strike and trample their constitutional rights. And there is no doubt that she will use it again,” said Rennick. “But there must be consequences for stepping on fundamental rights. Consequences on the streets, and most importantly, consequences at the ballot box.” 

Rennick said governments that weaken public services, who roll back rights, and who try to divide workers can be defeated, but only if CUPE is ‘all in.’ 

“Every local, every sector, must step up. Every local must engage every member, every day. And the national union must not only be there to lead and support – it must coordinate, strategize, and stand shoulder to shoulder with every local to ensure no one is left behind.” 

Rennick noted that CUPE added 8.5 new permanent positions in Alberta over the last five years, compared to just five new positions in the previous ten years.  

“These investments ensure that locals, sectors, and members have resources, support, and leadership to organize, campaign, and defend public services.”

Reaching into labour history to find lessons for today, CUPE President Mark Hancock told delegates that unions have faced difficult times before and come out stronger for it. 

“Some of the greatest achievements that organized labour has ever won came during moments of turmoil – just like the one we find ourselves in right now,” said Hancock.  

Hancock pointed to battles after the first and second world wars when unions didn’t have the legal recognition they have today, but still won bargaining rights, the Rand formula, pensions, health care, and basic health and safety standards. 

“It wasn’t easy,” said Hancock. “So many leaders and activists before us were fired, jailed, assaulted, even murdered.” 

Hancock noted that in the last year alone, both the federal and Alberta governments took multiple actions to rob workers of rights we’ve enjoyed for decades. 

“Mark Carney didn’t hesitate to shred our members’ Charter rights during the Air Canada strike last summer. And he won’t lift a finger to defend public health care and our public services while they’re under attack right here in Alberta as we speak.” 

“The UCP is busy pushing dangerous schemes that nobody asked for and nobody wants, like pulling Alberta out of the CPP and playing footsy with Maple MAGA Trump wannabes who want to split our country apart.” 

Hancock said that being a trade unionist in a time of ‘right-wing lunatics’ means acknowledging the challenge and never giving up ‘on the fight for a better future.’ 

Referring to the safety of workers as “not optional,” Hancock noted that the death of CUPE member Deborah Onwu in 2019 led to four judicial recommendations that the UCP government has still not acted on. 

“We owe it to people like Deborah Onwu and her friends and family – and far too many others who have lost loved ones because of violence in our workplaces,” said Hancock, “We owe it to them to fight like hell.” 

Hancock ended with an appeal to delegates to not be fooled by Danielle Smith’s attempts to divide workers with ‘non-stop culture wars and manufactured outrage.’ 

“When governments fail to solve real problems that they’re responsible for creating – they start looking for somebody else to pin the blame on. Blaming newcomers and other vulnerable folks just lets her off the hook.” 

EDMONTON, AB – How many times can Alberta conservatives make the same mistake building schools?

That’s a question posed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE Alberta) today as the Alberta government announces it will again use public-private partnerships (P3s) to build schools. The government has twice abandoned this model in the past.

CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal pointed out that the conservative government used P3s to build schools up to 2014, and then abandoned the model. They tried again in 2019 and changed direction once more in 2022.

Under a P3 model, the government initially pays less for the construction of a school, and then pays a form of rent over several decades that costs taxpayers much more in the long run. P3s also lead to accountability problems with the maintenance and upkeep of the building. The model keeps a lot of debt ‘off book’ and is therefore attractive to the UCP, who are battling a huge deficit despite record royalty revenues.

“P3s don’t work unless you want to pay off private developers who are friends of the government,” said Uppal. “A government that is already soaked in scandal for giving sweet contracts to friends for ‘Turkish Tylenol’ should probably be more careful.”

“Alberta abandoned this model twice before. Other provinces have abandoned it too. Taxpayers will be robbed for schools that should just be built the conventional, safe way.”

 

EDMONTON – With almost six times the royalty revenue of the last government, the UCP are raising taxes, running deficits and cutting services.

CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal says Alberta deserves a new approach.

“For the last six years, the UCP slashed corporate taxes, underfunded education, underfunded health care, cut post-secondary funding, and cut municipal funding,” said Uppal. “In yesterday’s budget, we have a huge deficit, tax increases, and they’ve still not reversed their own cuts to education and health care.”

“There’s a crisis in health care, but no new funding for hospitals or primary care. Classrooms are overcrowded, but no funding for a single new public school.”

Uppal noted that Albertans will pay an additional $360 million in increased taxes and fees while corporate taxes remain the same.

The almost $10 billion deficit wipes out the surpluses of previous years that were themselves built on cuts to key services.

“Today’s budget just shows, again, that the UCP are incompetent managers of our money and our public services.”

Key areas of concern:

• Alberta still has the lowest funding for education of any province.
• Property tax increase.
• Home care costs to increase by 2%.
• Increased taxes on hotel rooms and rental cars.
• Twenty-seven new tax and fee increases of 10% overall.
• An increase in certification cost for trades, including a $150 fees for Red Seal and entrance exams, where previously there was none. Previously, fees for a Blue seal were $50, trade qualifier was $60, and the apprenticeship education program was $35.
• The UCP is creating a 5^th entity to manage health care. Health Shared Services (HSS), to centralize corporate services between its four health agencies. How is this anything other than recreating AHS after they blew it up?
• No funding for new hospitals in Edmonton or Calgary.
• No new funding for primary health care, even with our hospitals in crisis.
• No funding for any new public schools.

EDMONTON, AB – CUPE Alberta is condemning Premier Danielle Smith’s announcement of an anti-immigrant referendum that seeks permission for her government to make it harder for Albertans to vote.

“She should get back to work and focus on the issues that actually matter to Albertans,” said CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal. “Albertans are facing actual crises in health care, in our classrooms, with the cost of living, and with jobs. Instead of taking accountability and fixing any of the problems her own government has created over the last six years, the Premier is trying to shift blame and divide our province.”

Smith has proposed introducing stricter voter identification rules, despite public data showing only seven instances of voter fraud in Alberta since 2013. CUPE Alberta says the move is a clear attempt to undermine confidence in elections, suppress voter participation, and create distrust of immigrants.

“Voter fraud is not an issue in Alberta. Full stop,” Uppal said. “You can’t change the rules of democracy to solve a problem that you’ve made up.”

CUPE National President Mark Hancock warned against the dangers of continuing to import American-style disinformation tactics into our country. “We don’t need to copy the worst parts of U.S. politics,” Hancock said. “Manufactured culture wars, anti-immigrant fearmongering, and violent oppression tear communities apart, just as we see south of the border. Our members and our communities deserve better.”

CUPE also strongly denounced the anti-immigrant tone of the proposed referendum questions.

“Immigrants are our co-workers, our neighbours, and essential members of our communities,” said Candace Rennick, CUPE National Secretary-Treasurer. “They work in our hospitals, our schools, our municipalities, and our social services. They are the backbone of our economy. Scapegoating newcomers will not fix overcrowded classrooms or emergency room wait times. Properly funding public services will.”

CUPE Alberta is calling for a provincial election so voters can have a direct and meaningful say in the direction of the province.

“If the Premier is so confident in her proposal, she should call an election,” Uppal said. “Albertans deserve the opportunity to vote on the future of public health care, public education, and the kind of province we want to live in, not be dragged into a convoluted, racist referendum designed to distract from government failure.”

EDMONTON, AB – A campaign calling for a “State of Emergency” in Alberta health care has received almost 25,000 signatures in three weeks on an online petition and over 8,000 stories and comments about the poor shape of the province’s health system.

CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal launched a new website (www.stateofemergency.ca/stories) today, publishing all of the 8,000 comments received by the union.

“The response has been overwhelming and heartbreaking,” said Uppal. “Albertans have told us about poor treatment, long waits and tragic results. This shouldn’t happen in a province as rich as Alberta.”

Uppal said that over the last decade, Alberta’s population has increased by 37%, but hospital beds have only increased by 13%.

“Health care workers will move heaven and earth to help patients, but after years of UCP underfunding, they are limited in what they can do.”

Some examples from the comments left:

“I had a Pulmonary Embolism and waited 12 hours to be seen, and was only seen then because my blood pressure was over 260. There was ONE doctor on that day/night.”
Susan – Edmonton

“My son was in emergency with air in his spinal fluid on his brain in excruciating pain. He waited 9-1/2 hours to see the doctor. He was rushed to the UofA in an ambulance, as it could have been fatal. OUR SYSTEM IS SOOO BROKEN. The Edmonton population has doubled since we last built a hospital.”
John – Edmonton

“I had to wait admitted in the extremely loud emergency room waiting for a bed for 3 days.” Sheri – Calgary

“WE NEED MORE STAFF in the PUBLIC HEALTHCARE SYSTEM as most of us cannot afford private.”
Lori – Ponoka

CUPE Alberta and the Alberta Indigenous Council are calling on the UCP Government to repeal Bill13 The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, in the upcoming spring session of the Alberta Legislature.

Bill 13 bans the mandatory cultural competency training for all lawyers implemented by the Alberta Law Society following a recommendation by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“The passage of Bill 13 is an outright rejection of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Indigenous Albertans,” said Council co-chair and Senator Glenda Keating.

Action 25 of the Commission states:

Federation of Law Societies of Canada to ensure that lawyers receive appropriate cultural competency training, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.

Alberta lawyers in an overwhelming majority voted to support Action 25 and maintain a requirement for mandatory Indigenous Cultural Competency training for practicing lawyers,” said the Senator, “but now the Government legislated away the rights of these professionals to satisfy a small minority, some of whom believe the residential school system was a good thing.”

CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal not only expressed concern for the passage of this legislation, but also with how the member from Cypress Hill – Medicine Hat described mandatory training.

“CUPE is committed to implementing the calls to action within our work and our locals, and Bill 13 and its prohibition on the bodies that regulate our diverse members could have dangerous consequences for not only our members, but the Alberta public that they support,” said Uppal.

“The risk of this only increases when a UCP MLA likens  mandatory training to “authoritarian ideological re-education camps… fuelled by far-leftist Marxist ideology and propaganda, brainwashing for social justice mafias.”

Indigenous Council Senator Glenda agrees, stating that “Every day I work to support Albertans impacted by domestic violence so I know first hand how important it is that all of us in the system have the training to meaningfully support Indigenous Albertans – from the head of Government through every department my clients and peers interact with like Health, Education, Justice and Community and Social services.”

“Bill 13 is a step backwards and risks erasing progress that has been made in the last decade.”

The Spring sitting of the Legislature could start as early as February 10^th.

 

:clc/cope 491

EDMONTON, AB – The Alberta Division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE Alberta) has launched an online campaign calling on Premier Danielle Smith to declare a health care state of emergency.

The campaign, located at www.stateofemergency.ca has already collected 9,000 names of Albertans who have sent emails to the Premier calling on the province to declare an emergency.

Last week, the Alberta Medical Association called for the declaration to give health officials more tools to handle overflowing hospitals and emergency rooms.

CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal, herself a health care worker, pointed to the death of a 44-year-old man at Grey Nuns hospital after waiting eight hours to be seen by medical personnel. There was another case where an elderly patient with influenza waited four days on a stretcher for care.

“There have always been problems in health care, but those problems are worse than ever, and they fall on the laps of the UCP government,” said Uppal. “They have shortchanged funding every year since taking office in 2019, they have blown up the system into multiple confusing organizations, and they have replaced the board of AHS more times than anyone can keep track of.”

Uppal also pointed to the cancellation of new health care projects, like a much needed hospital in southwest Edmonton.

The campaign website is allowing Albertans to post their stories about negative health care experiences. Among those posted include the following:

“Between Christmas and New Year’s, a resident in my friend’s building spent 36 hours in terrible pain waiting for a bed. He had to go out in freezing temperatures to lie down in his vehicle to alleviate the pain, while his wife remained in the emergency waiting room to hold his spot”
Esther, Red Deer

“I have breast cancer, it took me 7 weeks to get the results from my second surgery.”
Alvina, Sylvan Lake

“I live in a small rural community and we are without our emergency department on many occasions due to a Doctor shortage. I have to wait two to three weeks to get into see my local Family Doctor. We need help in rural Alberta. Can you please help us?!”
Wendy, Killam

“I spent 7 hrs in Foothills ER on Jan 14 to be diagnosed with a broken ankle. I witnessed the chaos and overwhelming situations our care givers are dealing with. My care was exceptional given the circumstances. Danielle Smith you MUST DO BETTER.”
Irene, Calgary

My grandpa died because of your government. He had internal bleeding, but they couldn’t get him a room, they couldn’t get him tests to find the bleeding, fast enough because of this crisis YOUR government caused.”
Jenn, Blackfalds

More testimonials at www.stateofemergency.ca

Calgary, AB – CUPE 8125, representing over 4,700 Cabin Crew Members at WestJet and Encore, acknowledges WestJet’s decision to reverse the universally unpopular new 28-inch-pitch seat configuration. This pause follows significant concern from both employees and guests regarding the operational impacts and overall experience resulting from the denser cabin layout.

“Our members have been telling us very clearly that these reconfigured aircraft led to increased tensions onboard, more frequent escalated interactions with guests, and significant physical and emotional strain,” said Alia Hussain, CUPE 8125 WestJet Component President. 

The union reminds the public that Cabin Crew are not responsible for corporate decisions. During the new seat configuration rollout, frontline employees experienced a troubling rise in guest frustration. That frustration, and even aggression, was too often directed at the very people tasked with maintaining safety and care onboard. Flight attendants were often learning about or experiencing the changes at the same time guests were.

“Our members do not design aircraft or determine service models,” said Hussain. “Their role is to deliver safety, service, and professionalism in the face of ever-changing operational demands directed by the company.”

CUPE 8125 has consistently emphasized that frontline experience must inform decision-making, especially when it directly impacts the travel experience. As the union enters the next stage of bargaining, it continues to advocate for decisions that prioritize people, both employees and guests, recognizing that long-term business success is built on that foundation.

“We remain hopeful that this signals a shift toward a more collaborative dialogue going forward,” said Hussain. “When frontline realities are taken seriously, everyone benefits: the operation, the guest, and the workforce.”

“We hope that WestJet will continue in this spirit and end unpaid work for our members. Canadians across the country agree that flight attendants should be paid for all their hours on the job, and we look forward to addressing this issue at the bargaining table.”

CUPE 8125 is calling on WestJet to meaningfully engage with flight attendants and their union in the future, before making decisions that directly affect working conditions, passenger interactions, and onboard safety.