Government wants to steal money from workers, hand it to billionaires
By Guy Smith,
AUPE president
This year, Labour Day in Alberta is different. We’re at a turning point, a once-in-a-generation or once-in-a-lifetime moment.
Traditionally, this is a time when we look back on all the things that unions and workers have done for us. You’ll hear politicians and leaders singing the praises of the labour movement, offering thanks for our work, for the long weekend, for the five-day week, for paid vacations, for pensions.
This year, we will hear that again – but those comments will ring hollow this time.
Why?
Because most of those things that people thank us for once a year are under attack in Alberta today. We have a government obsessed with taking away our basic rights as workers, a government determined to make it easier for corporations and employers to abuse us, to pay us less, to make our jobs less secure.
We’ve endured government attacks before, but the ferocity of these new attacks is something new, fuelled by a seemingly irrational hatred for working people, and their unions, and a desire to let their billionaire buddies have a free hand.
This year, members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) have literally put their lives on the line to care for Albertans. In hospitals and continuing-care centres, in government services, in correctional facilities and law enforcement, these workers have continued doing their jobs in the face of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the worst health crisis in 100 years.
Other workers have done the same in our grocery stores and in trucking and delivery services.
Albertans have expressed their sincere gratitude with personal comments, with applause, with signs on their lawns and with lots of love on social media.
You might think that, having been given undeniable proof of the value of these workers and of their commitment to doing their jobs, we’d be seeing signs of gratitude from the government.
Unfortunately, here the UCP government is at odds with most Albertans. Next month, we are due to return to bargaining with major employers including the Government of Alberta, Alberta Health Services (AHS), Covenant Health and others.
This ruthless government plans to return to its bargaining positions of firing thousands of workers, of freezing or cutting their wages, of cutting vital public services and of handing over much of what’s left to for-profit corporations.
This is a betrayal. It is a slap in the face to these workers we were all calling heroes a few weeks ago and to the Albertans who depend on the services they provide.
The evidence is clear: When a profit motive is included, the quality of service suffers. After all, where else are all those corporate bonuses, mega salaries and shareholder dividends going to come from, except from the money that was supposed to pay for the safety of our children, parents, neighbours, friends and co-workers.
So, this Labour Day is not a time to sit back rest, reflect and celebrate all we have achieved to make this province and this country a place where working people can succeed and where there is fairness and justice.
This Labour Day, we prepare to fight.
We prepare to battle an ideological government who will pat us on the back on Labour Day and stab us in the back the next day, a government that wants to steal money from workers and hand it over to billionaires.
We prepare to fight against unconstitutional legislation that seeks to take away our power to protest and to picket, that seeks to turn peaceful protesters into criminals.
Of course, part of that fight against unconstitutional legislation will take place in the courts, but the real battle must be on the streets.
What this government has forgotten is that it doesn’t get to tell us how or where we fight. If there’s one lesson to learn from labour history, it’s that our victories have always been won when we take direct action against oppressive employers and governments.
This Labour Day, we advise the Alberta government to heed that lesson.
AUPE members and countless other workers know the score. We’re preparing to fight. Because when we fight, we win.
(Guy Smith is president of AUPE, Western Canada’s largest union, with more than 95,000 members.)
This opinion column was published in the Calgary Herald on Sept. 5, 2020.