Date: 2017
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Lanny Chudyk is president of Civic Service Union 52 which represented about 6200 City of Edmonton inside workers in 2017. The union was trying to change a City culture of “bullying and harassment” that had developed in the previous 7 to 10 years. Chudyk grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan in a family that was half Ukrainian and half Norwegian. He worked various jobs in Saskatchewan before moving permanently to Edmonton in 1973. He then embarked on a long career in the City drainage branch. Active in his CUPE local, Chudyk joined an effort to decertify that local and create an independent union in 1978. By 2017, CSU 52 employed an office staff of 19, 8 labour relations officers, and a director of labour relations to handle 5 bargaining units. The union, he notes, is about 60 percent female, though the engineering areas and Edmonton Fire remain male-dominated. Chudyk blames deterioration of labour relations on the city’s transition from hiring people who worked their way up in the hierarchy to hiring labour relations people with no experience in the workplace.” Chudyk describes evolution of cooperation among civic unions that led to creation of the Coalition of Edmonton Civic Unions.
Keywords: Bargaining units; Bullying and harassment by management; Coalition of Edmonton Civic Unions; Decertification; Drainage branch; Edmonton inside workers; Independent union; Labour relations; Ukrainians.
Interview Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Alberta Federation of Labour; Civic Service Union #52; Canadian Union of Public Employees