AUPE members and supporters rally against Bill 9 at Rockyview Hospital

A rally was held outside the Rockyview Hospital on Wednesday, July 31 to protest Bill 9.

Over 100 AUPE members and supporters showed up for a rally outside the Rockyview Hospital on Wednesday to protest Bill 9, a bill that the union says is an attack on its contracts, wages and rights.

On Tuesday, Justice Eric Macklin granted a bid by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees for an injunction preventing the United Conservative government from implementing Bill 9, the recently passed Public Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act.

Bill 9 calls for delaying contract provisions for reopened wage talks and binding arbitration for public-sector workers.

According to the union about 60,000 AUPE members are affected and include; nurses, social workers, hospital support staff, prison guards, conservation officers, toxicologists, restaurant inspectors, therapists and sheriffs.

On Wednesday, more than 150 people turned up for a lunchtime rally at Calgary's Rockyview hospital for a Bill 9 information event.

Bonnie Gostola, Vice-president of the AUPE Calgary region, says the union's focus is to educate the members and the public.

"When the government brought Bill 9 down, it angered a lot of our workers. We feel that it is an attack on our constitutional right to exist as a union, to collectively bargain for our members and the Wage Deferral Act, basically was an act to basically take that right away and take our arbitration rights away, which many of those arbitrations are already in practice and already happening," she said. "If this government feels that they can bring a law to break a law and break a contract, they can also take this contract now and any contract that they have under their purview and make a law that breaks that contract no matter who it is with."

She says AUPE members are fed up with the government using its power to 'impose rules upon us and break the law, break the contract'.

"We feel that it is our power to show this government that we are not going to stand by idly and allow them to break the law and do it with impunity and really feel that they can just get away with anything," said Gostola. "Send this government a clear message that Albertans believe in fairness. Albertans believe in the right of law and that we will stand up for those rights."

Under current collective agreements, arbitration hearings were to occur between now and the end of October.

The union's president says the ruling means the hearings will now take place on August 7 – 9, instead of late in the fall.

AUPE members also rallied in Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan.

The government is appealing the ruling.

(With files from The Canadian Press and Keith Macdonald)