Don Aitken: Don Aitken was the first coordinator for Friends of Medicare (1979-1985) and served as president of the Alberta Federation of Labour from 1989 to 1992.
Ramon Antipan: After coming to Canada as a refugee of the Chilean coup, Ramon Antipan, whose roots are among the Mapuche Indigenous people, worked for Canada Post and became President of CUPW Local 730.
Elisabeth Ballermann: Elisabeth Ballermann served as president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta from 1995 to 2016, and as a prominent activist in Friends of Medicare.
Reg Basken: Reg Basken was president of the Alberta Federation of Labour from 1972 to 1978 and president of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union from 1984 to 1992.
Norman Bezanson (1929-2022) was active as an activist, officer, and then organizer for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) for most of his working life.
Bill Broad was the founding president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
Gunter Bruckner: Bus mechanic Gunter Bruckner, financial secretary/business agent of ATU Local 583 from 1975 to 1987, was responsible for the local buying its own building and managing its own pension fund.
Lynn Bue, lifelong feminist activist, was the first woman to be the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ first vice-president, first chief national negotiator, and first openly LGBTQ2S+ member of the national executive.
Christine Burdett chaired Friends of Medicare from 1999 to 2004, and led organization of a militant campaign against Ralph Klein’s Bill 11 in 2000 which proposed an expanded role for private surgical clinics.
Yessy Byl: Lawyer Yessy Byl, who served as TFW advocate for the Alberta Federation of Labour, describes how the Temporary Foreign Worker Program exploits working people.
Lanny Chudyk: 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.
David Coles: David Coles was president of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union (CEP) from 2006 to 2014 and played a large role in CEP’s subsequent merger with the Canadian Auto Workers to produce Unifor in 2013.
Peter Connelly was an early AUPE activist who later became a long-time staff representative.
Joy Correia has been involved in struggles of the Non-Academic Staff Association at the University of Alberta as first a member and then a staffer since 1982.
Carol Anne Dean was President of the Alberta Union of Public Employees (AUPE) when she faced off with the Klein-era conservatives privatizing and cutting many public employees’ jobs.
Terry Dekker served for over two decades as president of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Local 777, now part of Unifor.
Ann Dort-Maclean: Ann Dort-MacLean has fought for improvements for the unemployed, women, Indigenous people, temporary foreign workers, and the environment since she and her family moved to Fort McMurray in 1978.
John Ewasiw: John Ewasiw worked in meatpacking for 40 years, and was a UFCW activist before, during, and after the Gainers strike of 1986.
Mary Ewasiw: Mary Ewasiw worked at the Swifts/Gainers plant for over two decades, and became active in the UFCW.
Jason Foster: Dr. Jason Foster, Professor of Labour Relations at Athabasca University, served as part-time staff coordinator to Friends of Medicare in the mid-1990s.
Nancy Furlong spent her career building Alberta’s labour movement, including stints with the Alberta Union of Public Employees during the Klein-era cuts, the Alberta, Federation of Labour, and the Alberta New Democrats.
Alex Grimaldi’s many decades as a union activist included long periods as president of CUPE Local 30 and of the Edmonton and District Labour Council.
Karen Kuprys is a gerontology nurse who was a leading United Nurses of Alberta activist from 1993 to 2021 when she became secretary-treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour.
Eugene Mitchell (1931-2018) played leading roles in both the Alberta labour movement and the fledgling NDP over several decades, including serving as an executive officer of the Alberta Federation of Labour from 1968 to 1981.
Neil Reimer (1911-2011) was Canadian director, from 1951 to 1982, of the union that evolved into the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, and served as the Alberta NDP’s first leader from 1963 to 1969.
Linda Robinson is an Indigenous polio survivor, determined to fight for improvements for Indigenous people.
Heather Smith, RN, who took part in all 4 province-wide United Nurses of Alberta strikes between 1977 and 1998, has served as president of UNA since 1988.
Siobhan Vipond: Lifelong union activist Siobhan Vipond became vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress after years of service as steward, negotiator, and vice-president of IATSE Local 210, and secretary treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour.