By Terry Inigo-Jones, Communications Staff
As Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols famously said: “Anger is an energy.”
AUPE Local 006 members channeled anger into energy when they recently started a campaign to support Albertans with disabilities.
It began when the Alberta government cut jobs in the Family Support for Children with Disabilities (FSCD) and Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) programs.
We are the first point of contact for these families. We want to help, but we don’t have the resources to keep up.
“AUPE members are burning out trying to do their critically important jobs,” says AUPE Vice-President Sandra Azocar. “Families of Albertans with disabilities apply for help, and our members’ jobs is to assess their applications. We are the first point of contact for these families. We want to help, but we don’t have the resources to keep up.”
Workers complained for years that the FSCD and PDD programs were short staffed. Finally, the government hired 40 case workers to help, but these were only temporary contracts. The government chose not to renew these positions at the end of 2024.
Members working in PDD are now reporting caseloads of up to 200 files, while caseloads in FSCD are at 130 files and rising. That is way above the recommended maximum of 95-100.
“About 12,000 families with severely disabled family members are now on a waiting list, with no hope of their applications being processed any time soon,” says Azocar. “Some have waited for more than two years to be assessed.”
Anger over the job cuts and workloads boiled over this January.
Planning the campaign
Members quickly called a meeting to take action. About 60 joined the meeting in person at AUPE’s Edmonton headquarters, and more than100 more joined online from all over the province.
“Their anger gave them the energy to act. What we needed was focus,” says Azocar.
Members worked with AUPE’s organizing department to decide where to aim their anger. They determined who has the power to make changes and who they should target with direct action. The target should always be someone who has the power to make the changes you are demanding. This is called using a power analysis.
Targeting supervisors and site managers would not work, because the decisions were being made at the political level, not by management. The people responsible were Jason Nixon, Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, and other Members of the Legislature of Alberta (MLAs).
Their anger gave them the energy to act. What we needed was focus.
We also realized any efforts to protect disability services would be more effective if actions were co-ordinated with other groups.
“Not satisfied with axing our jobs, the government also cut about $1 million in funding from four disability advocacy groups,” says Azocar. “These were natural allies who shared our concerns over the government’s failures.”
The members then created a planning committee. They contacted several organizations to make the campaign a collective effort.
Act now to help Alberta’s most vulnerable
The plan kicked off in January with a letter writing campaign.
Members, families, and supporters across the province sent letters to Minister Nixon and MLAs to voice their anger. Within weeks, hundreds of letters had been sent. Members also sent an open letter to the minister.
Members and supporters then held rallies in Edmonton, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge and Fort McMurray. Our rallies generated significant media coverage and raised public awareness of the issues.
The team met again in February to discuss next steps. Stay tuned to hear more about where the campaign goes next.
Keep the momentum going
Meanwhile, the momentum from the campaign has brought other benefits.
With more than 82,000 AUPE members in bargaining for new collective agreements, including about 22,000 employed directly by the Government of Alberta (GOA), the union is preparing for strikes. A strike vote for GOA members could come as early as May.
“Energized by the disability-services campaign, about 40 Local 006 members volunteered for training to be strike captains within two weeks of a call being issued,” says Azocar.
If you’re interested in being a strike captain, you can learn more and take the course here.
“That’s the beauty of members working on a campaign that they care about,” says Azocar. “It engages them in the broader struggle for negotiating a new collective agreement to address their concerns over working conditions, short staffing and wages.”