‘I guess math IS hard for these people,’ says AUPE’s Jason Heistad
EDMONTON – Today’s empty UCP promise to create jobs has angered members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) facing the loss of their employment from Jason Kenney’s government.
“It is sickening for hard-working maintenance workers in health care and government services to see this government announce it will be upgrading facilities to create new jobs with one hand while threatening their jobs with the other,” says Jason Heistad, executive secretary-treasurer of AUPE, which represents more than 90,000 workers.
The government has said it wants to cut 11,000 health-care jobs, including those workers who maintain hospitals. It is also looking to outsource the maintenance of some government buildings, which could mean the loss of 85 jobs, and it plans to cut 750 jobs at post-secondary institutions this year.
“UCP promises to create new maintenance jobs or new post-secondary jobs ring hollow with those workers whose jobs are threatened,” says Heistad. “Imagine how you’d feel if government tells you your job is on the line and then boasts about creating new jobs in the same area?”
The government’s infrastructure announcement today (Friday, March 12) included:
- $343 million to be spent on repairs, upgrades, maintenance and replacement of building systems in more than 1,000 Alberta Health Services (AHS) facilities;
- $337 million to assist with maintaining facilities at publicly funded post-secondary institutions; and
- $321 million for government-owned facilities to maintain the courthouses, provincial buildings, housing, post-secondary institutions, health facilities, education and cultural facilities.
“The UCP announcement says it will create 7,500 jobs, but forgets to mention the many thousands more jobs it plans to kill. I guess math IS hard for these people,”says Heistad.
“Since this government began to waste nearly $5 billion dollars on tax giveaways to already profitable corporations, Alberta has lost 122,700 full-time-equivalent jobs, according to Statistics Canada. The evidence is clear that Jason Kenney is a job killer not a job creator,” he says.
-30-
Jason Heistad is available for comment.
For more information, please contact Terry Inigo-Jones, communications officer, 403-831-4394 or t.inigo-jones@aupe.org.