Alberta frontline workers to receive one-time $1,200 payment from government

“No one’s had to bear a bigger share of the burden than frontline workers of all kinds in Alberta. They didn’t have the luxury of working from home,” said Kenney.

Alberta’s payments to essential workers is part of a cost-shared program first announced by Ottawa in May. The province will receive approximately $347 million in federal funding and will foot $118 million of the bill itself.

In the private sector, those include gas station attendants, dental assistants and food processing workers who must earn $25 or less per hour to qualify, Copping said.

Public and private sector workers in the health care, continuing care, education, transportation and grocery industries will be eligible for the benefit if they worked at least 300 hours between Oct. 12 and Jan. 31.

‘It is bound to leave deserving workers out’

While hundreds of schools across the province have been impacted by COVID-19 quarantines and absences, teachers were excluded from the benefit.

Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling said he was pleased to see education assistants, office staff, bus drivers and caretakers included, but he was disappointed that teachers did not get recognition.

“The difficulty with this benefit is that it is bound to leave deserving workers out, but including these education support workers is a good decision,” said Schilling in a statement.

Some unions representing workers who are expected to qualify said the benefit was better late than never, but two of the province’s biggest unions called it a cynical gesture that gives the appearance of political opportunism.

Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said the government appeared to be trying to deflect questions about Kenney’s leadership.

“I think they want to change the narrative, and they’re having trouble doing that, but in doing so, and rushing this, which it looks like they’ve done, they’ve also created more confusion,” said Smith.

Unions were not consulted, and many in government services such as sheriffs, correctional officers, and social workers appear to have been left out, he said.

Part-time workers or those who were temporarily laid off might not meet the 300-hour threshold, so it would have been more fair to tie the benefit to hourly wage top-ups rather than a lump sum, Smith said.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said by only including select jobs, the government is dividing Alberta’s frontline workers.

‘It smells like crass politics’

NDP Opposition labour critic Christina Gray said Kenney hurt Alberta’s economic recovery by dragging his feet.

The NDP estimated that by not taking full advantage of the federal funding after it was announced by Ottawa in May, Alberta delayed boosting the GDP by hundreds of millions of dollars and adding more than 1,000 jobs until the end of 2022.

While approximately 140,000 private sector workers will be eligible for a total of $170 million, Gray said she is concerned that workers could fall through the cracks because they must rely on employers to apply.

Gray said the government’s move, two weeks ahead of the provincial budget expected on Feb. 25, is a smokescreen to distract from the public sector wage cuts and layoffs Kenney has signalled.

“It smells like crass politics,” said Gray, adding those in health care are working in an intensely stressful situation, while the government is also threatening their incomes.

“They are looking at this announcement today as $1,200 now and pink slips or wage cuts tomorrow,” said Gray.

When asked how the government reconciled the two different messages, Kenney said the benefit was not a long-term commitment, but a kind of bonus unique to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Money does not grow on trees … we also have to protect the health of the province’s finances to make our first-class health care sustainable, so we have to moderate our spending,” said Kenney.