Bill 9, the Public Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act, delays wage arbitration for AUPE members and many more working Albertans, until after October 31, 2019.
The UCP government is attacking AUPE members and all working Albertans. They’ve made things even worse than they were under the previous government.
The UCP government legal counsel represented to AUPE on June 20 that Bill 9 would receive Royal Assent and become law early morning on Friday June 21. Wage arbitration for 23,000 front-line government workers was cancelled based on that information, but as of June 24, Bill 9 has not received Royal Assent and is not yet law.
We were lied to. The level of the government’s deceit is unprecedented. Your negotiating teams share the members’ frustration and anger and we have, and will continue, to fight to secure immediate arbitration dates.
This is bad faith bargaining. It’s outrageous. It’s proof the UCP government has no respect for you, the job you do, your collective agreements, or the rule of law. Because of their actions, AUPE has filed with the Court of Queen’s Bench to fight Bill 9.
It is clear we can’t trust what the UCP government will say in the future, not when our wages and our collective agreements are on the line.
If this is what they’re doing just three months after the election, can you imagine what they’ll do next?
AUPE members and all working Albertans need to get ready to fight this government. We won’t be pushed around. We will stand together, in solidarity, and we will fight this government’s attacks on workers.
Get involved by visiting www.aupe.org/fightback, where you can learn more about Bill 9 and sign up to take action against the UCP’s attack on workers.