base pay. Members do not pay dues on shift or weekend differential pay, or on overtime pay. Change over time In the mid-1990s, AUPE saw its membership fall due to the privatization of some government-run services during the provincial leadership of Premier Ralph Klein. Membership fell to about 35,000 in 1995. However, under the leadership of Dan MacLennan, a Calgary jail guard who was elected in 1997, AUPE rebuilt itself and saw its membership surpass 60,000. MacLennan's efforts were aided by increasing moderation in the policies of the Klein government in the years after the cuts of the mid-1990s, as well as by rapid economic and population growth in the province of Alberta. Doug Knight was elected president in a by-election in 2006 after MacLennan left the union to pursue a career in the private sector. Dramatic growth continued under Knight, with membership reaching 67,000 in June 2007. Guy Smith has been president of AUPE since being elected in October 2009 and Jason Heistad has been Executive Secretary-Treasurer since October 2013. Under the current leadership, membership of AUPE has grown to 95,000 workers. Affiliation AUPE was a component part of the National Union of Public and General Employees until 2001, when it was suspended by that organization in a dispute over an organizing campaign involving members of another union. At its annual convention in 2006, delegates voted to formally disaffiliate AUPE from NUPGE, and by association the Canadian Labour Congress and the Alberta Federation of Labour. History The Civil Service Association of Alberta AUPE began life on March 26, 1919, when a small group of Alberta government employees held a founding meeting in north Edmonton's First Presbyterian Church. They agreed to incorporate the Civil Service Association of Alberta (CSA), and elected Judson Lambe as their first president. They adopted a crest that declared: "Unity Strength Protection." The CSA held its first annual convention in February 1921 at a total cost of $202.65. Eighteen delegates and 11 Provincial Executive members attended. They chose a Public Works employee, W.T. Aiken, as their new president. And, despite the attitudes of some politicians, civil servants were in those days highly respected and valued in society. From the start, the CSA's leaders made progress. In response to their concerns about patronage, the government appointed a Civil Service Commissioner in 1923. They bargained pay and working conditions through an advisory joint council established by the United