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 – [email protected]
Charity Hill (A) – [email protected]
Local 056
Tammy Lanktree – [email protected]
Juanita Cozicar (A) – [email protected]
Local 057
Wendy Kicia – [email protected]
Janice Drader (A) – [email protected]
Local 058
Anton Schindler – [email protected]
Dave Ibach (A) – [email protected]
Local 095
James Sullivan – [email protected]
Anna Silva (A) – [email protected]
Lamont Health Care Centre GSS
Carol Palichuk – [email protected]
AUPE Resource Staff for AHS GSS
Chris Dickson, Lead Negotiator – [email protected]
Kate Robinson, Negotiator – [email protected]
Jason Rattray, Negotiator – [email protected]
Tracy Noble, Edmonton-North Organizer – [email protected]
Margaret Kapuwa, Central Organizer – [email protected]
Jaime Urbina, Calgary-South Organizer – [email protected]
Alexander Delorme, Communications – [email protected]
