Media Release: UCP budget forces more job losses at SAIT

CALGARY – Twenty-nine more jobs have been cut by the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) as the casualties of Premier Kenney’s bad-news budget climb.

A total of 29 Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) members have been laid off in recent weeks, including workers in the School of Hospitality and athletics department. This follows 41 AUPE position abolishments at the technical institute earlier this year.

These jobs are part of an expected 230 to be lost because of UCP budget cuts.

“SAIT announced in February it was forced to make huge cuts because of the UCP, but it still comes as a shock to see these groups of members lose their jobs,” says AUPE Vice-President Kevin Barry, who works as a technician at the University of Calgary.

“You would think Premier Kenney might reverse course now that COVID-19 has caused so many challenges for advanced education, but he seems to have no compassion for workers and students.”

Barry notes that just like the rest of the UCP government’s actions, the only ones who aren’t hurting are the rich.

“Just as the UCP is making working Albertans pay for billions in tax cuts to CEOs and big business, their post secondary cuts put Albertans out of work but leave Presidents and Directors unscathed.

SAIT is Alberta’s third-largest post secondary institution. It’s bleeding jobs. And yet its CEO Dr. David Ross made over $495,000 in 2019.”

“There are so many other ways SAIT could have absorbed these cuts, but as always it’s the working class who endures the worst of it. It’s time for us to fight back.”

AUPE is western Canada’s largest union with over 95,000 members. Approximately 10,000 AUPE members work in the post secondary sector.

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Vice-President Barry is available for interviews.

For more information, contact: Alexander Delorme, Communications, 780-264-9274