CUPE marks Labour Day with call for better wages

By Lethbridge Herald on September 2, 2024.

Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan, with arm in sling, joined throngs of others on Monday during a march to Galt Gardens following CUPE’s Waging Ahead rally at City Hall. Herald photo by Al Beeber

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Dozens of Canadian Union of Public Employees members and their supporters rallied in front of City Hall on Monday morning before marching to Galt Gardens where the Lethbridge & District Labour Council staged its annual Labour Day barbecue.

The Waging Ahead rally organized by CUPE was a call for wage increases, improved working conditions, job security and protections for pensions and benefits.

An hour into the barbecue after the rally, lines were long and about 300 people had already been served with organizers expecting to feed 1,000 people during the three-hour event.

Krysty Thomas, president of the labour council, told The Herald at Galt Gardens the council “was ecstatic” with the turnout.

“It’s great to see so many families out enjoying the beautiful park, the beautiful park, all the amenities we have to share. It’s always been a really important flagship event for our labour council,” said Thomas.

“It’s a really great way to help the under-employed, the unemployed, the whole community really.”

Thomas said the labour fight is a fight for everyone, not just for unions.

The City Hall rally featured speakers from CUPE, Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan, a Canadian Labour Congress representative and others including the two NDP hopefuls for Lethbridge West talking about the need for better wages in the province.

The enthusiastic crowd heard how educational assistants and others in the education system are struggling to pay mortgages and put food on the table for their families with the wages they earn.

One told the crowd for some the food bank is their primary grocery store.

Joanne Lavkulich, president of CUPE Local 1825, chair of the Alberta Education Employees Committee and a librarian in the Holy Spirit school district, said at least a 21 per cent wage increase is needed with another nine per cent in the next contract just for the status quo to be maintained. She told the audience that the rate of inflation is seven times the amount of wage increases.

She said she was speaking for 10,000 CUPE education workers across Alberta and told the crowd “we cannot live on what we make in Alberta. Fifty per cent of us have more than one job just to be able to afford food and shelter. Working full-time, not being able to afford the mortgage, people have lost their homes,” Lavkulich said, with some living with family or friends, in their cars or are couch surfing.

Most aren’t making a living wage with thousands of public service workers living under the poverty line, Lavkulich said.

“We live in poverty while being fully employed in 2024 in Alberta. Wages increases that we have won in the past months have not made a difference,” with most getting 2.75 per cent this year, she said.

With “unprecedented tax reduction and wealth growth for corporations, Alberta by far leads the provinces in wealth creation for corporations,” she said, while employees are being laid off for economic reasons and hours are being reduced for others who are doing the same work and more because of those cuts.

“We want to work, that’s why we have jobs in education. We take the training and we are there to help students learn. We like our jobs and we care about our students,” she said.

McGowan told the audience that the Alberta Federation of Labour, which represents 175,000 members in most public and private sector unions in the province, actually started in Lethbridge in 1912.

The reason for that is because of the coal industry, he said. In the Crowsnest Pass, workers organized to fight for an eight-hour day, decent wages and Canada’s first occupational health and safety protections, he said.

He said the province is in the midst of a cost of living crisis and CUPE’s Waging Ahead campaign was both timely and important. 

“We haven’t seen levels of inflation like this for at least 40 years and Alberta is struggling is more than any other province. We used to have not that long ago bragging rights about having the highest average wages in the country and we took that for granted” but since 2019 – the year the UCP was elected – it has lagged every other province in terms of wage growth, McGowan he said.

“We’ve been falling behind.”

Rory Gill, president of CUPE Alberta, said the Waging Ahead campaign “is going to change things in Alberta.”

He recalled a meeting last year with Premier Danielle Smith in which she told him the province was going through tough times and union members would have to accept that.

“I told her that public sector workers have been accepting it for a good long time, especially education workers, many of them who had not had a raise for 10 years,” Gill recalled. He told the premier they were making less than poverty wages and he said Smith told him ‘people make choices.’”

He said “its no mystery” why a quarter of a million public sector workers are in bargaining right now – “it’s because the premier believes that she can crush the labour movement. The premier believes that she can crush public sector workers. She can make public sector workers, all of us, take poverty wages, services will erode” and the premier will say there needs to be privatization and competition, Gill told the attentive crowd.

“We’ve had absolutely enough of this. We are fighting for wages, we are waging ahead, but when you wage ahead, you’re talking about properly resourcing the system. If the people who work in it can support themselves, they can focus on educating children, they can focus on caring for the vulnerable, they can focus on making sure that municipalities work and the economies in municipalities can go forward,” Gill added.

“This premier doesn’t believe in Alberta, she doesn’t believe in the people here. She believes that everyone is an individual and everyone’s on their own,” he said.

In a statement to media Monday morning, Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade Matt Jones said Labour Day provides an opportunity to recognize the province’s workers and the contributions they make to the provincial economy and their communities.

“Alberta’s workforce is the backbone of the economic engine of Canada. Each day it makes our province the best place to live, work and raise a family.

Our government is working to promote safe, fair and healthy workplaces that support job creation, investment attraction and our continued economic leadership. On behalf of Alberta’s government, thank you to the 2.5-million Alberta workers for what you do each day. We wish you all a happy Labour Day,” Jones said.