Year: 2010
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Nancy Furlong did not grow up in a labour activist family, but she spent her career in service to Alberta workers. Her first unionized employment made her a member of an emerging Alberta Union of Public Employees (AUPE). She was soon hired as an AUPE staffer, and was executive director when Premier Klein’s cuts decimated the public service. Initially AUPE and the Canadian Union of Public Employees cooperated to fight cuts. But Klein combined components of the two unions, forcing competition between them to represent the resulting units. From 2007 to 2013, Furlong was the elected secretary-treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour. Her interview discusses challenges in navigating internal union politics. She argues that union leadership requires taking the long view and nurturing a broader movement, which AFL annual schools attempt to do. Furlong was also president of the Alberta NDP. To critics of an AFL officer holding that role, she comments: “The workers of this province absolutely have to become political or we’re never going to have a province making decisions that are good for us.” After her AFL years, Furlong’s appointments included labour relations officer for the Non-Academic Staff Association at the University of Alberta.
Keywords: AFL Labour School; Internal union workings; Klein cuts; Political action and unions; Privatization; Public employees; Secretary-treasurer; Strikes; Union leadership; Union politics.
Transcript: Download PDF
See also: Alberta Federation of Labour; Alberta Union of Provincial Employees; Canadian Union of Public Employees; Non-Academic Staff Association; Women and Work in Alberta