Government employees’ contract expires Aug. 31: AUPE ready for bargaining
EDMONTON – The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees plans to commence bargaining a new collective agreement for more than 21,000 Government of Alberta employees just one week after their contract expires on Aug. 31.
The union’s General Services Bargaining Committee is scheduled to exchange opening proposals with the employer on Sept. 8. The bargaining process could take months to complete. Employees will maintain the rights and benefits of their expired contract while the new agreement is being negotiated.
“We have a very strong mandate from our members to pursue improvements to pay and pension, but also basic labour rights the government has denied their employees,” said AUPE President Guy Smith.
“It’s not a level playing field for our members – the government is denying them legislated rights that unionized private sector employees enjoy,” he said.
AUPE expects the government to take a hard line on financial issues, but says government employees shouldn’t be denied wage increases that are consistent with the broader labour market.
“Increasing wages would literally be a drop in the bucket for the province. If the entire Government of Alberta budget was represented by 200 bottles of water, a 1 per-cent increase to salaries would be equal to two tablespoons of water,” said Smith.
“We understand that the government is under political pressure to ‘tighten its belt’ but frontline government employees are already burning out from high workloads,” said Smith.
“Our members shouldn’t be punished in this round of bargaining just because the political landscape is changing,” he said.
Among other measures the union is pursuing are improvements to pensions to help workers make up for shortfalls in the Canada Pension Plan and give workers the same kind of retirement security that government managers have.