It’s time for a Worker Agenda in Alberta

Albertans need their elected leaders – both UCP and NDP – to focus on things that ACTUALLY matter to ordinary working people.

No more toxic Trump-style tactics designed to anger, distract and divide us.

No more timid half measures that don’t really address the issues that are making life hard for us.

Here’s what Alberta workers need and demand:

• Wages that keep up with the rising cost of living – that means lifting the wage floor with a higher minimum wage AND enhancing bargaining power for workers. Stripping workers of their rights is the exact OPPOSITE of what’s needed in Alberta, right now!
• Real action on affordability – including rent freezes, public auto insurance, regulated power, public housing solutions and an excess profits tax to prevent price-gouging by big, monopolistic corporations.
• A strategy for jobs and the economy that involves more than giving billionaires our money –  this strategy needs to acknowledge a) the implications to our province of shifts in global demand for oil; b) the dangers posed to the Canadian economy by Trump and his policies of economic and political domination; and c) the threat posed to workers by artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.
• A plan for protecting and enhancing the public services we need – starting with a reversal of the current government’s approach of underfunding public education and fragmenting and privatizing public health care. We especially need to address the under-staffing crisis in education and health care.
• Real health and safety at work – including protection from getting sick over and over again due to exposure to things like Covid in the workplace.
• A serious commitment to defending our democracy – by rejecting separatism, putting restrictions on the undemocratic use of the Notwithstanding Clause and pushing back against misinformation and MAGA-style extremism, especially disinformation targeted at workers.
• A plan to address and reverse wealth inequality, which is at the root of so many of problems faced by our society. The solution lies in making profitable corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes and royalties.

Instead of forcing voters to always swallow the agendas of politicians, we think it’s time for politicians to respond to the ACTUAL priorities of ordinary citizens. That’s what the Worker Agenda is all about!

What we’re proposing is not radical or impractical. These are all policies that have been successfully implemented in multiple jurisdictions in Canada and around the world.

Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done! Join us! A better future is possible!

Together, we can build a worker-focused coalition of citizens that’s so BIG and VOCAL that our elected leaders have no choice but to make the Worker Agenda the actual agenda for Alberta!