Statement in Solidarity with Striking Health Care Workers -
Friends of Medicare - 
Frontline hospital workers represented by the Alberta
Union of Public Employees have walked off the job at locations across
Alberta today, to defend their jobs and the public health care system
that keeps Albertans safe and healthy. This is a
decision that no health care worker takes
lightly. These workers know better than anyone the importance of a
strong and well-resourced public health care system, and they know what
is at stake of being lost if the government continues to pursue their
incessant cuts. Health care workers are striking today because they
need to be sure
that they are equipped to provide the best possible care for patients,
and they know this government stands in the way of that.  Since
they formed government, the UCP has made it implicitly clear that they
are not interested in supporting our vital public health care system.
Jason Kenney has pursued an aggressive agenda of cutting and
privatizing the public services on which Albertans all rely. Even in
the face of a global pandemic, while health care workers have
proven themselves as the first line of defence in the province's
pandemic response, this government merely paused its layoffs of an
estimated 16,000 health care workers province-wide. The plan to
contract out and privatize their jobs is an insult to workers, and a
betrayal of the patients who depend on them.
"Kenney's
UCP government continues to demonstrate
nothing but disdain for the workers on health care's front lines. This
government has shown that they will stop at nothing to push forward
their privatization agenda," says Sandra Azocar, Executive Director of
Friends of Medicare. "Make no mistake, everything they have done so far
is by
design. Their panels, their reviews, their legislative changes, have
all served to provide the political fodder and legal framework to
decimate those services that we value as society's great equalizers:
education and health care." We have a government
that has failed to learn from this
pandemic and does not respond to rallies, letter writing and telephone
campaigns. They don't care about petitions, and they are counting on
the fact that we can't take to the street to protest their destructive
legislation during a pandemic. In their refusal to listen to Albertans'
concerns on
behalf of our public health care system, this government has left
health care workers little choice but to strike. "This
government declared war on the frontline health
care workers of this province when they announced they were cutting
over 11,000 good health care jobs at a time when Albertans are already
struggling," says Azocar. "Jason Kenney wasn't in Alberta in 2012 when
the same workers whose jobs he is bent on attacking went on a wildcat
strike and shut down hospitals. Kenney has not seen the fight that
Albertans have waged time and again to protect our public health care.
In this wildcat strike, solidarity and people-power have never rang so
true and necessary against this government's absolutism." Friends
of Medicare stands in solidarity with striking
health care workers for the sake of patients all across this province
and for the protection of our vital public health care system.
This article was published in
Number 73 - October 27, 2020
Article Link:
Statement in Solidarity with Striking Health Care Workers -
Friends of Medicare
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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