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In 1993, the government of Alberta embarked on an ambitious plan to eliminate the provincial debt by 2010 and balance the budget within four years without raising taxes. The major vehicles to the plan's achievement were unprecedented budget cuts and public sector restructuring. Initially, public sector union leaders were defiant, promising an all-out struggle to thwart policies that jeopardized the unions' vested interests in job security and organizational survival. More than five years later, unions have failed to influence in any significant way policy development and implementation. I explore why public sector unions did not mount any collective action to influence the political discourse in Alberta between 1993 and 1998.
I. Introduction
Worldwide, governments are trying to balance their budgets and eliminate their debts. Since 1993, the province of Alberta, Canada, has been on the forefront of these efforts, even viewed by many as a trailblazer (Farnsworth, 1995; Fund, 1995). Upon election in June 1993, Premier Ralph Klein and his Progressive Conservative government embarked on an ambitious socio-economic plan, popularly known as the "Klein Revolution." The target was to eliminate the provincial debt by 2010 and balance the budget within four years without raising taxes. The major vehicles to its achievement were unprecedented budget cuts and public sector restructuring.1
Not everyone, however, was ready to surrender to the Klein Revolution. The day after Albertans handed a majority mandate to Klein, union leaders were confident that in the coming months workers across the province would unite against Klein's policies, "the government would cave in and the labor movement would rise as a major political force in Alberta" (Feschuk and Mitchell, 1994). One union president pledged that she would lead an illegal strike and go to jail to resist government policies that jeopardized union members' livelihood (Taylor, 1995, p. 309). And the newly elected president of the largest union in Alberta, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) declared, "[y]ou are headed for one of the biggest labor battles that you've ever seen in this province" (Coulter, 1993). Given the collective muscle of public sector unions in government, health care, and education, labor militancy was a real prospect.
More than five years later, unions have failed to influence in any significant way the Klein Revolution. Instead, union...