According to the Alberta Union of Public Employees, nearly 200 post-secondary workers in Calgary, Lethbridge, and Red Deer have lost their jobs since the start of the year.
In their statement, AUPE claims that 28.5 workers at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary lost their jobs last week.
After being laid off, SAIT administration refused to let them return to their workstations to retrieve their personal belonging or to say goodbye to their coworkers and friends. They were escorted off the campus, too.
The same thing happened to me, as a member of AUPE, when I was laid off at the U of L in 2010; although, they let me get my stuff from my office, but I had to be accompanied by an HR official.
AUPE said workers in Lethbridge and Red Deer experienced similar treatment, which the union described as “abhorrent”.
Lethbridge Polytechnic got rid of 53 workers earlier this month, and Red Deer Polytechnic cut more than 100 workers back in February!
This is what happens when governments underfund postsecondary education.
Announcing $30 million in capital funding for SAIT or $13 million for Red Deer Polytechnic makes no difference when you don’t provide enough operational funding to help institutions continue to offer education while enrolment and inflation keep increasing.
Workers at all 3 institutions have been working on collective agreements that expired in June 2024, almost a year ago. Those agreements gave them 3 years of wage freezes and a raise of just 2.75% in the final year. Their contracts before this gave them 2 years of wage freezes and just 1% in the final year.
Giving your workers 5 years of wage freezes and an increase of just 3.75% (which was less than inflation in just 2022) and then laying off a bunch of them is disrespectful.
The province should be ashamed of not giving these institutions adequate funding, and the 3 institutions should be ashamed of not advocating for their workers.
