Alberta Far from Worker Friendly

Private health care proceeding - needed changes in labour legislation shelved.

Since coming to power in 1993, Alberta Conservative Premier Ralph Klein has been trying to create an American-style private health care system. That drive towards a two-tier health care system is moving in to overdrive.

A new Health Care Assurance Act will be tabled in the Alberta legislature this spring. Portions of what's in that legislation have been leaked to the media.

The best information available at this time suggests that Alberta will allow private hospitals, possibly owned by foreign corporations. Doctors will be allowed to practice in both the private and the public systems at the same time. There will apparently be no reference to the Canada Health Act, which requires universal access, comprehensive care, public administration and portability. It will also provide a blue print for the intrusion of multinational insurance corporations into areas now covered by Medicare.

Clearly the system proposed by Alberta Premier Klein will be one where the rich get great care, workers get mediocre care and the poor are lucky to get any care at all. The union movement and citizen groups like the Friends of Medicare are working to stop this assault on health care for Alberta workers.

An ambitious public campaign involving radio and television commercials, brochures and rallies is being launched. The thrust of the advertising is to ensure that Alberta residents understand that The Third Way is the wrong way.

The Alberta Federation of Labour is asking unions and union members to help pay for this campaign. If anyone reading this wants to lend a helping hand, cheques payable to the Alberta Federation of Labour with a notation that it's to support the Friends of Medicare campaign, can be sent to the AFL at 10802 - 172 Street, Edmonton, AB, T5S 2T3.

Another example of what happens in a province with a government that is not labour friendly is found in one change that won't be happening in Alberta. Following a sometimes violent strike at the Lakeside Packers meat plant in Alberta last year, Alberta Labour Minister Mike Cardinal said he would be giving serious consideration to first contract legislation. Similar legislation has existed in Manitoba for a many years and allows the government to impose a first union contract if one cannot be negotiated between the union and the newly unionized employer.

But Cardinal seems to have had a change of heart, saying recently that he no longer sees a need for a law that would force an arbitrated settlement for a first contract.

"I don't plan to make any changes," he said in an interview after touring the Lakeside slaughterhouse in Brooks. "Let's leave things as they are."

Labour leaders expressed shock at hearing the minister's comments, especially after he promised in November to hold public consultations on first-contract legislation.

"We're deeply disappointed that the minister hasn't taken this opportunity to improve our labour laws," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour. "What the strike at Lakeside demonstrated for us is that our labour laws are broken and desperately need to be fixed."

Tom Hesse, the chief union negotiator in the Lakeside dispute, was also dismayed that Cardinal had decided to drop any further discussion of a first-contract law. He said a first-contract law could have prevented the violence during the Lakeside strike that sent three pickets to hospital.

"The president of our local union was driven off the road, there's outstanding criminal charges, millions and millions of dollars were spent on RCMP policing."

AFL President McGowan says "The strike that we had at Lakeside would not have happened in almost any other Canadian jurisdiction," he said. "It's frustrating for us when we know there's a solution."

The solution he was referring to was of course to follow Manitoba's lead and have first contract legislation. Doing that would be a lot easier if Alberta also choose to follow Manitoba's lead in electing a worker friendly government - a NDP government.