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AUPE News & Updates
For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Education sector union leaders to meet today on post-secondary funding
crisis
CALGARY – Leaders of education sector union components in Calgary
will meet today to discuss how to respond to the crisis in post-secondary
education funding.
The meeting was prompted by decisions to eliminate support staff jobs
at numerous post-secondary institutions throughout Alberta as a result
of under-funding by the provincial government.
"Albertans do not support massive cuts to post-secondary education,
just as they do not support huge cuts and teacher layoffs in schools,"
said Alberta Union of Provincial Employees President Dan MacLennan.
"The objective of this meeting by AUPE leaders and representatives
of other groups in the Calgary area is develop ways to tap into that
widespread public sentiment to preserve our post-secondary education
system," he said.
MacLennan noted that the TD Bank, in its April economic report on the
success of the Calgary-Edmonton economic corridor, concluded the now-booming
region is vulnerable because Alberta lags behind other provinces in
the number of high school students it sends to post-secondary education.
"The TD Bank report points to soaring tuition costs as a key part
of this problem," MacLennan said. "Clearly under-funding of
education in Alberta is an issue even with extremely conservative groups
like the banks."
"AUPE will be on the forefront of addressing the under-funding
problem, and this meeting is part of that process," said AUPE Union
Representative Ray Domeij, who will facilitate today’s meeting.
A meeting of AUPE’s Education
Sector Co-ordinating Committee to discuss the problem will be held on
June 20 in Edmonton.
Today’s meeting will be attended by representatives of AUPE locals
at Bow Valley College, SAIT and the University of Calgary, as well as
representatives of support staff from Mount Royal College and some faculty
associations.
The meeting will begin at 4:30 p.m. today at AUPE’s Calgary Regional
Office, Suite 600, 1816 Crowchild Trail N.W.
The TD bank report on the Calgary -Edmonton corridor can be found on
the Internet at www. td.com/economics.
For more information, contact:
Dan MacLennan, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-910-8392 (cellular
phone)
Ray Domeij, Union Representative, AUPE (Calgary Regional Office), 403-
531-8613 or 403-461-1815 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943
(cellular phone)
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