Landing only days after the UCP government’s refusal to rule out job losses for nearly 800 nurses, the Oct. 13 announcement from the Minister of Health and the CEO of AHS comes as a devastating blow to health-care support workers and Albertans.

Thousands of AHS positions will be outsourced – privatized – to “reduce labour costs.” The cuts, based on recommendations from the self-serving Ernst & Young review released in January will affect nearly 11,000 workers in laboratory services, medical laundry, housekeeping and food services – the very people who have been on the front line of this pandemic, ensuring testing and sanitation under the most challenging conditions.

They are also overwhelmingly female, and many from racialized backgrounds (over 83 per cent of our health services workforce is female, according to statistics from 2015). This is a demographic that has been hit hard by the triple burden of the pandemic-related shutdown, additional unpaid care work and targeted government cuts to the public sector. Not only is there no plan from the Alberta government to address the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women, but the UCP are also doubling and tripling down on women’s economic obstacles.

Minister Tyler Shandro claims there will be no job losses, and this is merely “a change of employers,” but this ignores the reality of outsourcing and privatization.

Source: 11,000 Reasons Why – Parkland Institute

Don’t Miss Kenney Goes To Hell

There are several posts about Premier Jason Kenney, and the dirt he’s been dealing to Albertans.

This topic will be a running thread for ideas to un-throne Mr.Kenney. If you have some, please share.

Additionally, if anyone would like to be a guest blogger, or submit articles for publishing, these are options I would certainly consider.