Alberta Politics: Making Child Labour Great Again! Alberta’s new labour law breaks old ground while undermining unions

Alberta’s about to Make Child Labour Great Again! If you think this is a breakthrough, you’re probably a fast-food franchise owner. Cabinet’s “private sector union liaison,” MLA Searle Turton (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta Government video). Yesterday, Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party introduced a bill called the Restoring Balance in

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Alberta Politics: Alberta Union of Provincial Employees goes to court to challenge UCP law that criminalizes public protest

It was inevitable that sooner or later someone would challenge the United Conservative Party Government’s so-called Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which appears on its face to include patently unconstitutional attacks on fundamental rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the event, the challenge was sooner and

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Alberta Politics: Coronavirus has U.S. physicians eyeing politics — will COVID-19 and the UCP’s War on Doctors spur the same thing here?

The New York Times reported yesterday how the coronavirus crisis is prodding a wave of mostly progressive American physicians to enter politics. Many are women and most have connected the dots between the United States’ appalling Third World health care system and the disastrous rate of COVID-19 infection and death

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Alberta Politics: Devin Dreeshen’s happy talk about workplace safety undermines the battle against COVID-19

By insisting Alberta’s meat-packing plants are safe to work in despite crowded conditions and ignoring workers’ pleas to temporarily close large slaughterhouses to halt the spread of COVID-19, Alberta Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen appears to be actively undermining the provincial fight against the coronavirus. It may have seemed faintly credible

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Alberta Politics: Docs fight Alberta pay cuts in court, seeking $250 million, while battling COVID-19 on the front lines of health care

Yesterday morning, Christine Molnar, president of the Alberta Medical Association, announced that the province’s doctors are launching a constitutional challenge and seeking $250 million in compensation from the United Conservative Party Government for the way it tore up their contract two months ago. Yesterday afternoon, Health Minister Tyler Shandro showed

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Alberta Politics: Alberta government makes moves to lay off more public employees — this time provincial public service members

No one should assume Saturday’s mass layoff of 26,000 substitute teachers, teaching assistants and non-essential support staff at schools throughout Alberta is the last such action planned by the United Conservative Party Government as it attempts to game federal pandemic supports. In a bargaining update published this morning by the

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Alberta Politics: Arbitrator’s decision awarding 1% pay increase to some AUPE members undermines UCP austerity arguments

An independent labour arbitrator yesterday awarded unionized Alberta government employees and health care support workers a modest 1-per-cent pay increase for 2019. Having gone into wage-reopener negotiations in the final year of their current collective agreements seeking much higher pay increases ranging from 6.5 to 7.85 per cent, the Alberta

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Alberta Politics: Are secret mandatory government bargaining orders the new face of public-sector labour relations in Alberta?

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his government moved yesterday to impose big changes on public sector bargaining in Alberta, not to mention a host of other areas. They’re sure to unleash a flood of litigation. There’s enough stuff embedded in the Harper-Government-style omnibus budget legislation introduced to the Alberta Legislature

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