The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) is a Canadian trade union operating solely in the province of Alberta. With approximately 95,000 members as of March 2019, it is Alberta's largest union. AUPE is primarily a public sector union, with members employed in government, health care, education, boards and agencies, municipalities, and occasionally private companies. As of 2022, AUPE has 33 locals and administers more than 120 separate collective agreements. Notable employers of AUPE members include the Government of Alberta, Alberta Health Services, Covenant Health, University of Calgary, Northern and Southern Alberta Institutes of Technology, Edmonton Catholic Schools, and ATB Financial. As of 2014, the union had a staff of more than 100 employees at its headquarters in Edmonton and seven regional offices across Alberta, including Peace River, Grande Prairie, Athabasca, Camrose, Red Deer, Calgary and Lethbridge. AUPE has its origins in the Civil Service Association of Alberta, founded in 1919 to represent "civil servants," as direct employees of the Alberta government were then known. It became a legal union with the power to bargain collectively in 1977. AUPE remains active in the union movement and in provincial issues in Alberta. In the fall of 2007, it undertook a major campaign to press for changes in Alberta's labour laws, which ban strikes by most AUPE members. Despite those bans, AUPE members have taken illegal strike action on several occasions to press their demands for collective agreements. Membership The vast majority of AUPE's members come under one of two pieces of legislation, the Alberta Labour Relations Code and the Public Service Employees Relations Act. One small unit comes under federal Canadian labour legislation. AUPE categorizes its membership into four sectors for administrative purposes: Government services: direct employees of the Government of Alberta, with approximately 25,000 members. Health care: employees of health care providers, including Alberta Health Services, as well as other public, private and not-for-profit facilities, over 55,000 members. Education: non-academic employees of universities, community colleges, technical institutes and school boards, more than 11,000 members. Boards, agencies, and local government: employees of quasi-independent boards set up by the government of Alberta, government agencies, and municipal governments, as well as ATB Financial (a wholly-owned provincial crown corporation) and Alberta Terminals Ltd., a private grain-handling company and division of Cargill that was formerly a government agency. Altogether this sector includes more than 4,000 members. AUPE members pay union dues of 1.25% of their