Year: 2016
Location: Edmonton
Profile: Life-long social justice militant Sandra Azocar was born in Santiago, Chile. Her labour activist father was jailed, put in a concentration camp, and tortured when the military overthrew the elected government of Socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973. Upon his release, her dad was exiled to Argentina where his family joined him in a refugee camp. In 1975, Canada accepted the family as refugees.
Azocar joined the Edmonton movement to publicize the destructive Chilean military regime. She joined the Socialist Party of Chile at age 11. After completing a University of Alberta BA, she joined Alberta Welfare as a social worker in 1987. The impossible workload encouraged her involvement in AUPE Local 006 where she helped mobilize fellow workers for an illegal strike in 1990. She was chapter chair for over eight years and in 2006 became an AUPE vice-president. Fighting privatization and contracting out of services, she focused on encouraging grassroots activism. She enthusiastically supported a wildcat strike organized by Local 54 (General Support Services) in 2012. Participation was so widespread that the government did not punish participants. Later that year she began a 9½ year career as executive director of Friends of Medicare. She then returned to her AUPE v-p duties.
Keywords: Alberta Welfare (now Alberta Works); Allende; Chilean military coup; General Support Services; Local 6, AUPE; Local 54, AUPE; Privatization; Socialist Party of Chile; Wildcat strike; Workloads.
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See also: Alberta Union of Provincial Employees; Friends of Medicare; Women and Work in Alberta