Significant Events in AUPE History and Current Issues Faced

PROJECT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
SIGNIFICANT LIFE EVENTS.......................................................................................................3
Significant events in union history..............................................................................................3
Impact of these events on union and its members.......................................................................4
CURRENT ISSUES........................................................................................................................4
Current issues faced.....................................................................................................................4
Response to these issues..............................................................................................................5
Social issues.................................................................................................................................5
PERSONAL OBSERVATION........................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
AUPE i.e. Alberta Union of Provincial Employees operates solely in the Alberta Province
and is the largest trading union of Alberta. The majority of employees represented by AUPE are
appointed in the public sector where approximately 25000 members are direct government
employees, around 55000 with the healthcare services and NPO facilities, 11000 with
educational institutions and 4000 with municipal government. It was initially set up in the year
1976 with the purpose of serving civil servants and ensuring that their rights are protected (Clyde
& Lee, 2011). When there was an increased unrest amongst the employees in various sectors
such as healthcare where the holiday entitlements were challenged or under the Alberta Liquor
control Board where employees went on a strike and ultimately they walked off their jobs. This
led to the formation of AUPE that served as a legal body for serving mainly the employees
belonging to different governmental sector. A year later, the decisions taken by AUPE were no
longer required to be approved by the government and the status of AUPE changed into an
unincorporated union body. AUPE now had the bargaining right for every group of employees
that it protected and since then the trade union has been constantly working for the purpose of
serving the employees and has achieved some recognizable feats since then.
SIGNIFICANT LIFE EVENTS
Significant events in union history
The first significant event occurred in the year AUPE was set up i.e. in 1976. In this year,
the government set up an Anti- Inflation Board here it was made illegal for employees to
negotiate the increase in wages and it was not allowed to contest the decisions of the government
for increasing salary beyond a certain limit. The government compared the single digit increase
in pay for public employees to the 47% pay raise for MLA's and this was protested by AUPE
under the name Apple and Oranges campaign (Beatty, 2010). This was challenged by AUPE
openly where the failure to make successful negotiation for public employees led them to strike
and hitting bricks ultimately leading to winning the strike thus increasing the number of
members that associated themselves with AUPE.
The second significant event was in 2007 regarding the rights of the labour and a major
campaign was launched by AUPE regarding the change in the labour laws. The union challenged
the existing labour laws stating that they were outdated, i.e. redundant and did not conform to the
rights of Woking people set up at an international level. The union proposed that the there must