What is Alberta Union of Provincial Employees mean? The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees is a Canadian trade union operating solely in the province of Alberta. With approximately 95,000 members as of March 2019, it is Alberta's largest union.
Most of AUPE's members are employed in the public sector. AUPE divides its membership into four sectors for administrative purposes: Direct employees of the government of Alberta, with approximately 25,000 members; employees of health care providers, including Alberta Health Services, as well as other public, private and not-for-profit facilities, with more than 55,000 members; school boards and post-secondary educational institutions, more than 11,000 members; and government boards and agencies, plus municipal governments, more than 4,000 members. (AUPE also represents the employees of one private company, a former government of Alberta agency.)
The vast majority of AUPE's members come under one of two pieces of legislation, the Alberta Labour Relations Code and the Public Service Employees Relations Act. One small unit comes under federal Canadian labour legislation.
As of 2014, AUPE has 33 locals and administers more than 120 separate collective agreements. The union has a staff of more than 100 employees at its headquarters in Edmonton and at several regional offices located in communities throughout the province of Alberta, including Peace River, Grande Prairie, Athabasca, Camrose, Red Deer, Calgary and Lethbridge.
AUPE had its origins in the Civil Service Association of Alberta, founded in 1919 to represent "civil servants," as direct employees of the Alberta government were then known. It became a legal union with the power to bargain collectively in 1977.
In the mid-1990s, AUPE saw its membership fall due to the privatization of some government-run services during the provincial leadership by Premier Ralph Klein. Membership fell to about 35,000 in 1995. However, under the leadership of Dan MacLennan, a Calgary jail guard who was elected in 1997, AUPE rebuilt itself and saw its membership surpass 60,000. MacLennan's efforts were aided by increasing moderation in the policies of the Klein government in the years after the cuts of the mid-1990s, as well as by rapid economic and population growth in the province of Alberta.
AUPE was a component part of the National Union of Public and General Employees until 2001, when it was suspended by that organization in a dispute over an organizing campaign involving members of another union. At its annual convention in 2006, delegates voted to formally disaffiliate AUPE from NUPGE, and by association the Canadian Labour Congress and the Alberta Federation of Labour.
AUPE remains active in the union movement and in provincial issues in Alberta. In the fall of 2007, it undertook a major campaign to press for changes in Alberta's labour laws, which ban strikes by most AUPE members. Despite those bans, AUPE members have taken illegal strike action on several occasions to press their demands for collective agreements.
The past president of AUPE is Doug Knight, who was elected in a by-election in 2006 after MacLennan left the union to pursue a career in the private sector. Dramatic growth continued under Knight, with membership reaching 67,000 in June 2007.
The current president of AUPE is Guy Smith, who was elected in October 2009. The union's present Executive Secretary Treasurer is Jason Heistad, who was elected in October 2013.
AUPE members pay union dues of 1.25% of their base pay. Members do not pay dues on shift or weekend differential pay, or on overtime pay.
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