‘It is up to us’: Alberta Federation of Labour to prepare for general strike ‘if necessary’ in response to Bill 2

Alberta unions are sending a message to the province for invoking the notwithstanding clause to force teachers back to work. CTV Edmonton's Connor Hogg reports.

The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) said it will begin the process of conducting a general strike in response to the government’s swift passing of Bill 2 using the notwithstanding clause.

“We are committing to work with any and all of our fellow Albertans who agree with us that our rights, our democracy and our Canadian way of life will not be safe until we make Danielle Smith a radio host again, not a Premier,” AFL president Gil McGowan said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

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“To play on the words of wartime Prime Minister Mackenzie King: ‘Not necessarily a general strike, but a general strike if necessary.’”

A general strike could see tens of thousands of workers across dozens of industries walk off the job.

McGowan said there has never been a general strike in Alberta’s history.

“If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it up big,” he said, adding that they need the support of union and non-union workers to go head-to-head with the province.

“It needs to be so big and widely popular that we are all defended by the size of the movement … they can’t arrest 250,000 workers.”

Jason Foster, a labour relations professor at Athabasca University, said the government would be hard pressed not to listen to hundreds of thousands of workers if they were to mobilize, but it is likely to take some time.

“Today’s announcement is not going to change the course of events for the time being, but I think what I heard was that the labour movement feels like this is a long-term campaign,” Foster told CTV News Edmonton Wednesday afternoon. “This is a long-term effort to try and turn the tide of what this government does.”

Finance ministry press secretary Marisa Breeze said province expects the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) to carry out the necessary steps to address any illegal strike activity if it occurs.

“At this time, there has been no formal call for illegal labour action by any union or organization,” said Breeze in an email. “In cases of illegal strike action, the ALRB imposes fines and penalties on both organizations and individuals.”

The announcement comes the same day more than 50,000 teachers across the province were ordered back to work through the Back to School Act.

The act legislates the terms of an agreement that members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) widely rejected in September which included a 12 per cent salary increase over four years, additional market adjustments of up to 17 per cent for most teachers, and the hiring of 3,000 teachers and 1,500 educational assistants.

At the press conference, ATA president Jason Schilling said the support from other unions meant a lot to him and his colleagues across Alberta.

“Every Albertan should be a part of this fight,” he said. “I’m standing here … as a citizen of this province, with my Charter Rights stripped away. That should be a profound moment for everybody who lives here.”

The AFL represents 175,000 working Albertans. The Common Front, a coalition of unions supporting teachers, represents more than 350,000 workers across the province.

McGowan said all of the aforementioned unions will begin the process of engaging its members around things like recall and initiative campaigns as well as discussing the possibility of a general strike.

Alberta’s largest private sector union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, conducted a survey Tuesday of its 30,000 members with 90 per cent in support of teachers and 78 per cent saying they would support a general strike.

“Alberta workers are fed up,” said McGowan. “They’re fed up with a system that is clearly and increasingly rigged against them, and now they’re fed up with a government that is using its legislative power to silence workers and stop them from standing up for themselves.”

While a general strike was not officially called, union leaders will begin to speak with their members about potential job action.

“You’ve only seen the start of this pushback,” said Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske, adding they’ve gotten support from nearly every labour leader in Canada.

“The labour movement is going to stand strong to absolutely make sure that we push back in every single way on this notwithstanding clause business. It is absolutely deplorable.”

Finance Minister Nate Horner said the province knew there would be some controversy around the bill and “some unhappy people.”

“This was about getting kids back in school,” said the minister earlier Wednesday. “I think you’ll see a lot of initiative continue and start in new ways from this government, in ways that couldn’t have happened around the bargaining table.”

He said issues of class size and complexity, aggression and inclusion challenges can’t be handled in a collective bargaining agreement, hence the implementation of the “Class Size and Complexity Task Force.”

“My message is this that we’ve heard you. We know there’s other work that needs to be done in the classroom,” said Horner. “We’ll continue to show that we’ve heard that and try to catch up to this challenge.”

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