Alberta has a young and highly skilled population, which bodes well for investment and job growth — but only if the conditions are such that we retain our skilled workers and attract those with the skills we need.

We must be able to compete across Canada and globally to retain and attract workers with high wages and excellent working conditions.

In the current situation, we continue to lose workers to other jurisdictions with better wages, better access to pensions and better employment standards.

UCP decisions are leaving workers, particularly in healthcare, overwhelmed and overworked.

The Alberta NDP has, and always will be, a champion for working people.

We will reverse Danielle Smith and the UCP’s decisions to weaken occupational health and safety, and to cut overtime pay and holiday pay for those in the private sector.

We will ensure that Alberta has world-class working conditions by:

• Improving safety legislation to keep workers safe, including employee participation in worksite safety and the right to refuse unsafe work.
• Restoring presumptive PTSD for those injured in a traumatic event in the workplace, to keep working families healthy.
• Giving Fort McMurray firefighters retroactive access to WCB coverage through legislation. This will include respiratory illnesses and cancer coverage retroactive to 2003. And we’ll consult with other essential personnel groups that occupied Fort McMurray at the same time to provide the same coverage.
• Legislating a Catastrophic Event definition, to ensure all workers involved in such events have access to similar coverage without needing legislative changes.

We will ensure that Albertans get paid for their work.

The UCP took away your overtime, leaving many workers underpaid for their hard work. We will bring Alberta back into line with the rest of the country by requiring overtime be banked at 1.5 times, and that every worker gets paid for statutory holidays.

As we saw from the COVID-19 pandemic, having sick days available to workers can make a massive difference in keeping our work spaces healthy and functioning. We heard the calls for sick pay, so we will launch consultations with partners from all sectors on sick pay legislation.

The Alberta NDP will make Alberta more competitive and protect workers through legislation to end “Double Breasting,” the practice that undermines contracts and reduces Alberta wages in construction.

We will consult and develop a social procurement policy that benefits local workers and businesses. It will prioritize local workforces, fair wages, training opportunities, diversity and value for taxpayers.

We will repeal UCP legislation that attacked the rights of working people and reinstate the legislation that protected them:

• Repeal Bill 2, designed to help employers prevent their workers from being represented by a union if they choose.
• Repeal Bill 32, an attack on the democratic rights of Albertans.
• Reinstate Bill 17, the Fair and Family-friendly Workplaces Act, and Bill 30 An Act to Protect the Health and Well-Being of Albertans.

You deserve to be paid for the work you do, and when we all work together create safe and functioning work places it builds a better future for all Albertans.