AHS first notified AUPE of their intentions to cut 308 retail food services jobs on April 27, 2021. These General Support Services jobs are part of the 11,000 front-line health care jobs the UCP government threatened to cut in October 2020, which has already begun with the privatization of laundry services.
Since April of last year, AUPE has held numerous town halls and member-led actions to fight back. This includes a consultation process with AHS, which AHS was forced to participate in when they announced their intention to contract out retail food services.
However, AHS did not meaningfully participate in these consultations. They provided very little evidence to support their plans, and could not answer our simple questions about why contracting out services was supposedly a good decision.
AUPE files with the Alberta Labour Relations Board to save jobs
As a result of AHS’s actions, AUPE has secured September dates with an arbitrator to discuss AHS’s lack of meaningful consultation pursuant to a policy grievance under the collective agreement. If AHS is found to have not met their obligations, they must stop the contracting out of retail food services.
But September is a long way away, and we do not want any contracting out to happen before then. Therefore, AUPE also asked the board for an immediate hearing on the potential issuance of a cease-and-desist order. No date has yet been set for this yet, but the Employer has been given until April 26th to respond to our request. Hopefully this will put a halt to contracting out until a decision is made at the September meetings.
This is the latest of your negotiating team’s efforts to save General Support Services jobs, with the help of AUPE Resource Staff. But the real power to stop job cuts rests with all AHS GSS members. Only by working together can we stop AHS from further privatizing and contracting out our jobs!
Please contact your Local Negotiating Team representative or AUPE Resource Staff if you have any questions.
AHS GSS Negotiating Team
Local 054
Julie Woodford – juliew.chp006@gmail.com
Charity Hill (A) – charity.johanson@gmail.com
Local 056
Tammy Lanktree – local56.bargaining@outlook.com
Juanita Cozicar (A) – jcozicar@telus.net
Local 057
Wendy Kicia – wendykicia@hotmail.com
Janice Drader (A) – draderjanice@gmail.com
Local 058
Anton Schindler – waterdude69@gmail.com
Dave Ibach (A) – d1322j@gmail.com
Local 095
James Sullivan – sullivanlocal95@gmail.com
Anna Silva (A) – a.silva100@outlook.com
Lamont Health Care Centre GSS
Carol Palichuk – carolpalichuk@hotmail.com
AUPE Resource Staff for AHS GSS
Chris Dickson, Lead Negotiator – c.dickson@aupe.org
Kate Robinson, Negotiator – k.robinson@aupe.org
Jason Rattray, Negotiator – j.rattray@aupe.org
Tracy Noble, Edmonton-North Organizer – t.noble@aupe.org
Margaret Kapuwa, Central Organizer – m.kapuwa@aupe.org
Jaime Urbina, Calgary-South Organizer – j.urbina@aupe.org
Alexander Delorme, Communications – a.delorme@aupe.org
