AUPE welcomes Licensed Practical Nurses at Glenmore Auxiliary Hospital in Calgary
CALGARY – Alberta Union of Provincial Employees President Doug Knight welcomes a “small but significant” group of Licensed Practical Nurses who work at Carewest’s Glenmore Auxiliary Hospital as new members.
The approximately 40 LPNs at the publicly owned Calgary continuing-care facility had worked for years without a union while other Auxiliary Nursing Care (ANC) personnel and General Support Service (GSS) workers at the site were members of AUPE.
This week they voted to join AUPE in a vote supervised by the Alberta Labour Relations Board.
“These employees, who had remained outside the union before AUPE represented other workers at this site, clearly saw the benefits of AUPE membership in uncertain times,” said Knight.
“They saw what AUPE membership did for their co-workers at Carewest and they wanted to become part of the AUPE family,” Knight said. “We’re very happy to welcome them into AUPE and look forward to their contribution to our union.”
Knight noted that while this group “already enjoyed many of the advantages of a union-negotiated pay scale by working in a largely unionized workplace, they recognized that they needed the representation of a strong union to help them deal with a large employer on a range of potential human resources matters.
“So even though the group is a small one, we see them as very important to AUPE and look forward to working with them in the future,” he said.
Membership Services Officer Dave Malka, who led the AUPE effort to bring the group into the union, praised the role of AUPE members at the Glenmore hospital in explaining the advantages of union membership to the group.
“Our members played a critical role making these new members feel welcome and showing them that voting to join the union was the right thing for them to do in uncertain times like these,” Malka said.
“AUPE would welcome calls from other Carewest employees who are not now represented by a union to discuss the possibilities of joining AUPE,” he concluded.
AUPE represents approximately 700 ANC and GSS employees of Carewest, which operates nine continuing-care facilities in the Calgary area.