“Collective bargaining is one of the most important things that we do as a union,” says AUPE vice-president Susan Slade. “It’s an important way to secure improvements in our workplaces, and it’s an important way of maintaining those gains.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the majority of AUPE members have been in bargaining, and many of them have ratified new collective agreements. Despite long delays due to COVID-19, negotiations continued and workers made their voices heard at the bargaining table.
“The whole process of negotiations is not an amicable one with the employer,” says AUPE vice-president Sandra Azocar. “The employer sits across from us at the table and insults us, tells us that we aren’t necessary, that they could get rid of us and the workplace would be fine. They know it’s a lie, but it’s how they try to justify their attempts to impose rollbacks.”
That pattern held across sectors, from big tables like Government of Alberta (GOA) and the Alberta Health Services (AHS) bargaining units, to smaller tables in municipalities and schools. In every instance, AUPE negotiating teams had a clear message: we won’t accept any concessions at the bargaining table. Not one step back.
The Government Services Bargaining Committee, which negotiates with the GOA, was the first to achieve a tentative agreement. “We were able to beat the rollbacks at the bargaining table,” Slade says.
“We ended up signing a contract with no concessions, and modest improvements. We stood firm against what could have been chaos in government services.”
Members ratified the GOA agreement in December 2021. It was the first domino to fall, as the employer started to realize we were absolutely determined to not accept concessions and that we were actively preparing GOA members for job action if necessary. As a result, other employers began to get in line —withdrawing concessions, and offering job security, improvements to benefits, and small wage increases. Both AHS Nursing Care and AHS General Support Services (GSS) ended up with similar deals.
That doesn’t mean it’s been easy. Employers are still working hard to make sure that even these basic gains seem hard to reach, because they don’t want us to achieve what AUPE members deserve. At CareWest Nursing Care, for example, the employer is still insisting on a number of serious rollbacks that would restrict our rights to a safe workplace.
“It’s a huge slap in the face to all essential workers who came to work every day during the pandemic. Members are saying enough is enough with the disrespect that we’re seeing at some tables.”
In particular, negotiations have proven difficult in education—the sector which has been one of the prime targets for the United Conservative Party (UCP) budget cuts. Employer-side negotiators say that the government has instructed them to push for serious cuts and rollbacks.
“It’s so absurd to have mandates from the government,” Slade says. “We are supposed to have free and fair collective bargaining in this country. When the government is imposing mandates before we even sit down at the table, it makes a mockery of that idea. You can’t negotiate if the people making the decisions aren’t even at the table.”
At Living Waters Catholic Schools, for example, the employer-side negotiator says that they’ve been given a mandate to introduce a two-tier wage structure – “one of the most poisonous things that a boss can insert into a union contract,” Slade says. “Two-tier systems are meant to break union solidarity in the workplace by dividing workers against one another by creating two pay-scales for younger and older workers.”
Azocar adds: “Living Waters workers is one of those groups in AUPE that is really getting organized, both amongst themselves and within the community. It’s a small group, but they’ve got a letter-writing campaign in the areas the school board is located, they did a petition, and they’re attending school board meetings. They’re doing town halls to let people know where the negotiations are at – they know what needs to happen if they’re going to win a fair deal, and the local has been doing what they need to do to get people engaged.”
Engagement was a key part of how AUPE members at EMCON were finally able to achieve a deal after years of employer meddling. Despite the employer refusing to provide information mandated by the Alberta Labour Relations Board, and despite an attempted raid by an employer-dominated fake union, EMCON members were able to secure a contract in July. They did it by having the negotiating team travel across the province and hold meetings and discussions, and in-person voting. Without that engagement, they would probably still be at a standstill at the bargaining table, or worse.
Another table that’s getting organized is Good Samaritan, a continuing-care home chain where AUPE members have been without a contract for five years. Workers at Good Samaritan have begun holding rallies and information pickets outside their worksites to demand the employer come to the table.
“This is what we need to be doing,” Slade says. “When we get organized and put the pressure on, that’s when we can beat back the employer’s worst instincts. To negotiate effectively, we need to back that up with organization.”
For Azocar, these are lessons to take into the next round of bargaining. “That fighting spirit is the kind of thing we need to be building in the next couple rounds of negotiations,” she says. “If the economy is bad, the bosses always say that public-sector workers need to tighten their belt. When it’s good, when we can be recognized, it still never happens. Even during the brief time that the NDP was in power, we were still asked to take zeros.”
She adds: “Now is the time for us to act like the powerful union that we actually are. We could have a tremendous impact pushing for gains with our membership if we act according to our power and strength.”