The hospital workers -members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 8 and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Local 6 - staged a wildcat strike Nov. 15 after learning that the regional health authority intended to contract-out laundry services in Calgary hospitals. The laundry workers walked out when they discovered their jobs were being replaced by a private company, K-Bro, in Edmonton.

The Alberta Labour Relations Board ordered striking workers back to work two days later, but workers voted to defy the injunction. They were joined that day by other hospital workers from food services, housekeeping and nurses. Doctors refused to book patients in for surgery and the Regional Health Authority was forced to declare a state of emergency in the hospitals.

On Nov. 18 hundreds of workers from Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Fort McMurray and Edmonton joined their fellow workers on the picket lines at Calgary's remaining four hospitals. The Tory government has shut down several hospitals across the province in the past year.

Striking workers kept scabs from moving laundry in or out of the hospital. Local administrators, exempt staff and management had been trying to run the laundry. Two hospitals service the Calgary region with laundry service, a further effect of the government's cutbacks in health care.

Workers on the picket lines are defiant. They have told the press that contracting-out was the final straw; they had taken the roll-backs in good faith and now that they are going to lose their jobs they might as well hit the streets and show Albertans what this province will look like with reduced health services. Pickets chanted "General Strike" as more and more locals walked out over the weekend.

The Tory provincial government under Premier Ralph Klein (called "News of the North" by the Wall Street Journal) has been attacking Alberta's social safety net these past two years. These attacks have included massive budget cuts to hospitals, education and welfare. As well, the Klein government has captioned regional boards in health and education, stripping power away from local hospital and school boards. As a result, these regional health authorities have been given the responsibility to impose whatever changes are necessary to live within the government budget reductions.

Public sector workers in Alberta have taken wage and benefit cuts ranging from 5 to 20 percent. Still their jobs are not secure as the provincial government bulldozers through privatization of services.

K-Bro Linen, a private laundry company, recently was successful in its bid to privatize the University of Alberta's (Edmonton) Hospital laundry service, putting unionized workers out of work. K-Bro had been successful seven years ago in a low-ball bid to privatize laundry service at the Royal Alex Hospital in Edmonton.

K-Bro has received $1 million in venture capital from the taxpayer-funded Alberta Venture Capital fund. The company claimed to need the money to expand operations in American hospitals; in reality it spent most of its energy trying to gain a monopoly over laundry services being privatized in Alberta.

Premier Klein has tried to defuse the situation by recommending a cooling-off period of six months before the health authority tries to privatize hospital services. This from the tough-talking populist who claimed that the demonstrations and name-calling "won't make me blink." Well he has blinked, and is fighting back the tears.

While it has been easy for Klein to dismiss demonstrations, even those as big as 20,000 people, he is hard-pressed to explain the militancy and worker revolt in Calgary, the Tories' stronghold in Alberta. It is a personal embarrassment for Klein to have this series of strikes happening in his backyard. The strike adds flames to a smoldering situation in health care.

The Alberta Medical Association made Klein blink this week when they refused to take a $100 million roll back, instead opting for a mass publicity campaign attacking the government and its cuts to health care.

Thousands of Albertans have signed petitions and sent cards and letters to the government calling for an end to cuts in Medicare and hospital budgets.

The president of CUPE's Alberta Division told reporters that while this began as a strike for one group of workers protecting their jobs, it has grown into a struggle to stop the healthcare cuts and "protect our health care system for all Albertans."

The Health Authority is now seeking a court order to force the strikers back to work. Pickets are defiant, and are claiming to be prepared to face down the courts in order to save their jobs,. "We'll make Ralph (Klein) blink with a General Strike," says one picketer.

Originally published January, 1996, in Industrial Worker

Wildcat! Calgary Hospital Workers Defy Back-to-Work Order is the work and sole property of Eugene W. Plawiuk. All rights are reserved. Except where otherwise indicated it is © Copyright 1996 Eugene W. Plawiuk. You may save it for offline reading, but no permission is granted for printing it or redistributing it either in whole or in part. Requests for republication rights can be made to the author at: "ewplawiuk@oocities.com"

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