Brooks Health Centre employees vote for AUPE representation
BROOKS – Employees at the Brooks Health Centre working in General Support Service roles voted overwhelmingly in favour of AUPE representation on Sept. 1, 2010, in an Alberta Labour Relations Board supervised vote.
“Brooks Health Centre employees will now enjoy the benefits of union representation,” said AUPE President Guy Smith. We welcome the front-line workers to AUPE and we look forward to working closely with them, Smith added.
The unionization of Brooks’ GSS workers by AUPE is part of a continuing effort to help give non-union Alberta Health Services workers the benefits of representation.
“AUPE has organized 12 similar worksites in the province, the most recent being GSS staff at Bow Island Health Centre on Aug. 20,” said Smith.
This leaves Bassano and a lab in Lethbridge as the only non-unionized worksites left in the region.
When the Alberta government passed legislation in 2003 that combined all general support service and auxiliary nursing care bargaining units into single region-wide GSS and ANC units, non-union employees at a few small health centres and hospitals, like the GSS workers at the Brooks Health Centre, were left out.
The agreement will see 70 new members working as maintenance staff, housekeepers, unit clerks, laundry workers, cooks and other front line staff at the facility join with AUPE.
“We are happy to give staff at Brooks Health Centre the representation that they deserve,” said Smith. Workers at the site said they wanted to join with AUPE because they wanted to have real representation in the workplace, and a union that’s willing to take on the big fights when necessary, he added.
Brooks is located approximately 185 kilometres south east of Calgary.
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For more information:
Guy Smith, President, AUPE – 780-930-3301
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE – 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)