On Wednesday, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) leadership announced a “solidarity pact” it entered with more than two dozen unions, but offered few details on the pact’s tangible impact. 

Most of the participating unions are AFL affiliates, but the AFL made their announcement at the west Edmonton headquarters of the Alberta Union of Public Employees (AUPE), Alberta’s largest union. 

In 2001, AUPE was suspended from the AFL and Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) after the Canadian Union of Employees (CUPE) accused AUPE of raiding its members. 

Five years later, AUPE voted to formally disaffiliate itself from the AFL and CLC. 

But now AUPE is on board for the AFL-led solidarity pact, as are national unions such as Unifor and the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“The purpose of the solidarity pact is to let employers and governments in the province know that Alberta unions will stand together and fight together, all for one and one for all,” said AFL president Gil McGowan, who is up for re-election at the AFL convention next month. 

Signatories “will not let the economic uncertainty caused by Donald Trump’s trade war on Canada to be used as an excuse or a pretense to put the brakes on fair wage increases for Alberta workers,” McGowan added.

More than a dozen labour leaders convened at Alberta Union of Provincial Employees headquarters on March 26 to launch the Alberta Labour Federation-led solidarity pact.

The pact is part of the AFL’s broader “common front” strategy. McGowan described the approach of deliberately forging ties with unions that aren’t part of the AFL as the “labour movement-plus.”

“It’s about extending solidarity beyond the traditional house of labour to unions that are outside of that umbrella,” he explained. 

AUPE president Guy Smith was one of about a dozen other union leaders who shared the podium with McGowan at Wednesday’s event. 

Smith, noting that the “vast majority” of the 100,000 workers AUPE represents are in the midst of contract negotiations, said that “we are at the stage of worker empowerment like we’ve never seen before.” 

He said that the pact was “unanimously endorsed” by AUPE’s provincial executive to let other unions know that “they have our full support when they are under attack, or when they are fighting for higher wages and better working conditions.”

“We know we can receive the same support from these unions when we’re in these struggles as well,” Smith added. 

The solidarity pact, which is signed by unions, is not to be confused with AFL’s “solidarity pledge,” which can be signed by any worker, whether a union member or not. 

AFL secretary treasurer Cori Longo explained that the pledge commits the signatory “to show up on picket lines, to use their voice to fight for workers.”

“They’re pledging not to scab,” Longo added. “They’re pledging to stand up for their right to protest and their right to to strike, to speak up against employers and politicians who don’t respect workers.” 

Asked what this alliance will entail in practice, McGowan was tight-lipped.  

“What we’re dealing with is a high-stakes game and in any high-stakes game, you don’t reveal your cards,” he said. “We’re not in a position to share with you the details of our plans for cooperation.”