Alberta Unions Respond to Arrogant Government Decree to Seize Control of Public Sector Pension FundsSpeaking at a news conference held January 14, Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan said the government decrees to seize control of all public sector pension plans is unprecedented, outrageous and brazen.[1] AFL President McGowan said Bill 22 and the subsequent decree on December 23, 2020 amount to theft of pension funds that belong to working people and not to the government. Union leaders said the Ministerial Order from Finance Minister Travis Toews is designed to finish the work that the government started in the fall of 2019 with the passage of omnibus Bill 22. President McGowan said the ministerial orders will be challenged in the courts, as well as in a broad public campaign to demand Hands Off Our Pensions! and the immediate rescinding of the anti-worker ministerial orders and decree.
Workers cannot afford to watch this fight amongst the rich over their money proceed without immediate and stern intervention. Workers pension funds are theirs to control and decide on where they are invested and how they are distributed. Pension funds form part of the claim workers make in return for the sale of their capacity to work to those who own and control the economy. Workers have the right to control and decide how they spend their wages and any benefits, such as pensions, they may receive from the sale of their capacity to work. The issue of how workers' pension funds should be invested and distributed is for workers themselves to decide and work out through their own organizations without government interference. Alberta public sector workers forced the government to retreat from its schemes to wreck their defined benefit pensions in 2013, and continue to stand firm that pensions belong to the workers and that workers themselves must be in control so that their pension funds are invested in human-centred ways. Active and retired workers have broadly responded to the Kenney government’s anti-worker actions with slogans to affirm their right to decide: Hands Off Workers' Pensions! Whose Pensions? Our Pensions! Who Decides! We Decide! Note1. Also present at the January 14 news conference of trade unions to denounce the Kenney government's anti-worker decree: Guy Smith, President of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) The Alberta Teachers Association President Jason Schilling also issued a statement demanding that the Kenney orders to seize control of public sector pensions be rescinded.
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unions point out that Premier Kenney is not only going after the public
sector pension funds. He is floating the idea of taking Alberta out of
the Canada Pension Plan and establishing a separate provincial plan
where he can control pension funds to pay the rich with whom he is
connected. This fight forms part of the struggle of
competing private interests for control of workers' pension and other
funds.