Hi, I’m Randy Butler, and I am honored to be a candidate for AUPE Vice President.

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I am a communicator, marketer, relationship builder and community developer, with fifteen years’ experience working in communications, marketing, development and advocacy roles – thirteen of those years’ have been working in the post-secondary sector, and ten of those years have been as an AUPE member.

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I am a family man, with an amazing wife, Jenn, who supports my activism, advocacy, and community work, and together we have a blended family with four children – three who are now grown and developing their own careers, and one who is Kindergarten this fall. After I tell people that we have a 13 year gap between our two youngest children, I like to joke that I am never retiring, ha ha. Which is good, because I get bored if I’m not working or volunteering in some capacity.

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My career priorities have always focused more on taking positions where my work actively helps people, from my years as Vice President and President of the Students’ Association of Red Deer Polytechnic (formerly Red Deer College), to a Communications and Marketing career heavily focused on working on projects that improve the quality of life of students and the quality of education they receive, to my volunteer AUPE activism, which has focused heavily on helping to develop member engagement within my Local, I have never chased the almighty dollar – I am proud that the work that I do has a positive affect on the community.

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In many ways, I have been working towards this position for nearly my entire life, even before I became an AUPE member. I chaired my first meeting and learned rules of order at the age of 14 as a member of the 4-H program. Growing up on a cattle ranch in rural Alberta, I learned about hard work, fairness and the importance of community at an early age, and those values still drive me today.

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In college, I was elected by my peers to serve in student government for two years, the maximum term allowable at my institution, and I spent my time in those two years advocating for students, specifically around the increasing costs of attending post-secondary institutions, promoting student life through events and student camaraderie, and lobbying the government through partner student groups from across the province, with an end goal of promoting the needs of post-secondary students in the 2008 Provincial Election.

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My work with AUPE has included a lengthy list of committees, including social, communications, finance, and policy committees at the Local and Chapter level, sitting as an alternate on my Chapter’s Bargaining Committee, serving as the AUPE Representative on my employer’s Board of Governors, and filling the elected Executive positions of Chapter Vice Chair, Local Treasurer, Provincial Executive Representative, and Local Chair.  I also volunteer for the Red Deer Area Council, and I recently submitted my Union Steward Nomination Form.

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I have also spent the last two years as a member of the Human Rights Standing Committee. I applied for the Human Rights Committee because I have watched people I care about facing discrimination in and out of the workplace. As an ally, I wanted to use my voice to raise awareness for the discrimination and challenges that marginalized communities face – especially those that may not be apparent to people who haven’t experienced them firsthand. I am proud of the work that the committee has done in the past two years, and of my involvement in the committee, which has included collaborating on a number of social media campaigns, including our Black History Month, Asian Heritage Month, and IDE (Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) Awareness campaigns.

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My priorities are to increase member engagement, improve communication with members through responsiveness and collaboration, and by encouraging grassroots, member-driven initiatives that tackle the problems we face at the workplace, within our sectors, and collectively as a union.

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There is strength in numbers, and our greatest strength will be realized with a membership that is more informed about what AUPE does for them, and is empowered to speak up for what they believe in.