For immediate release: April 15, 2004

RED DEER — Alberta Union of Provincial Employees President Dan MacLennan warned union members from throughout Central Alberta Wednesday evening to be alert to new threats of privatization of government services.
“If you think this is not on the agenda, think again, it’s always on the agenda,” MacLennan told about 260 AUPE members who braved a late blast of winter to attend the third annual joint AGM held in the region.

AUPE members need to be alert to what’s happening in their areas, so that the union is ready to respond to fight to preserve members’ jobs and the quality public services Albertans deserve and expect, MacLennan said during his remarks at Westerner Park’s Harvest Centre.

Members and the public need to be particularly alert to threats against Red Deer’s Michener Centre, which provides services and supports to adults with developmental disabilities, MacLennan said.

“This is a facility we should be extremely concerned about,” he said. “People need to be calling their MLAs about the importance of this facility to this community.”

MacLennan criticized the province for its decision to close the Young Offenders unit in the Red Deer Remand Centre, which he said may actually raise costs as young inmates are transferred to and from facilities in Edmonton and Calgary rather than housed locally.

On a more upbeat note, MacLennan praised members for their enthusiastic participation in last summer’s campaign to win the Bill 27 union-representation runoff votes required under Bill 27.

“We stood to lose 500 workers in this region, 6,000 across Alberta,” he said. “Instead, we gained more than 6,000 — 1,500 of them in the Red Deer area who work fort the David Thompson Health Region.

“We’re extremely grateful to the work you folks did for us to make this possible,” he told the AGM participants.

MacLennan also told members that the recent criticism of Bill 27 by the United Nations’ International Labour Organization would help AUPE politically to keep the debate about Alberta’s labour laws on the front burner.

In a report published two weeks ago, the UN labour agency criticized Alberta for depriving many health workers of the right to strike and not consulting unions when it passed legislation last year to restructure health region labour relations bargaining.

While the UN decision is mainly of symbolic value, he said, it gives AUPE moral authority in its fight to see fair labour laws enacted in Alberta.

MacLennan used the occasion to present 30-year service pins to seven long-term members who attended the joint AGM: Hilda MacKay of AUPE Local 001, Marlene Belich of Local 006, Annette Gallant of Local 009, Kathleen Dubchak, Beverly Lassesen and Terry Rasmussen-Dixon of Local 010/005 and Bev Hill of Local 044. MacLennan encouraged participants in the event to also take advantage of AUPE’s extensive training opportunities for union members.

He cited seminars being held this week and next in Edmonton and Calgary, at which AUPE members and others can learn how to organize a political campaign — part of AUPE’s continuing effort to encourage members to participate in the democratic process by running for community leadership positions.

“We need people who understand unions on city councils in Alberta,” he said.

AUPE held its first Central Alberta joint AGM in 2002.

“That AUPE members will come out in terrible weather like we had this year and last shows just how important AUPE is in their worksites,” said Kathy Kadyk, a Membership Services Officer in AUPE’s Central Alberta Regional Office in Red Deer.

“These meetings give members from throughout Central Alberta the chance to meet one another, compare notes and discover that they share interests and problems even though their workplaces are very different,” Kadyk said. We’re looking forward to holding our fourth annual joint AGM next spring.”

In all, 12 locals with a combined membership of about 4,000 sent delegates to the joint AGM. AUPE members who work in correctional services, government administration, social services, the Michener Centre, front-line nursing, hospital support, gaming and liquor inspection and ATB Financial branches were at the meeting,
AUPE is Alberta’s largest union, with more than 58,000 members throughout Alberta, about 6,000 in Central Alberta.

For more information, contact:
Dan MacLennan, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-232-8392 (cellular phone)
Kathy Kadyk, Membership Services Officer, AUPE, 403-343-2166 or 403302-1966 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)