6,200 transit workers in AB without new contract

Last week, Alberta Jobs, Economy and Trade published the August 2024 collective agreement wage tables.

I knew that workers employed with Lethbridge Transit had been waiting for a while for a new contract, so I decided to check out the wage tables for municipal workers to see if there had been an update.

Unfortunately, there has been no update; these 173 or so workers have not had a new contract since their last one expired at the end of 2022, according to the August 2024 wage tables.

As well, the collective bargaining agreement database lists the most recent collective agreement as having expired in 2022.

Oh, and I also noticed that the contract just previous to that had 203 workers attached to it, which seems to indicate that Lethbridge Transit got rid of 30 workers between 2016 and 2019.

That could be one reason why the Lethbridge bus system has seemed like crap since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lethbridge Transit workers aren’t the only ones who seem to be still waiting on a new contract. The August 2024 wage tables indicate that workers in Calgary, Edmonton, and Fort McMurray have been waiting since the end of last year for theirs. That’s over 6,000 workers in addition to the 173 Lethbridge Transit workers who seem to be without a new contract.

Plus, 43 workers employed with the Access-a-Ride unit of Lethbridge Transit, who are on a different contract from other Lethbridge Transit workers, will have an expired contract at the end of this year.

Here’s a breakdown of each transit group, the number of workers on that contract, and when that contract expired.

Group	Workers	Expired
Calgary	3,200	31 Dec 2023
Edmonton – DTAS	130	30 Dec 2023
Edmonton – main	2,592	30 Dec 2023
Lethbridge – main	173	31 Dec 2022
RM Wood Buffalo	111	31 Dec 2023

That’s a combined 6,206 transit workers in the province still waiting on a contract, at least according to Alberta Jobs, Economy and Trade. Lethbridge workers have been without a contract the longest: nearly two years.

My guess as to why negotiations are taking so long, without having access to any bargaining updates, is that the workers are asking for pay increases that the employers don’t want to give them. After all, these workers have been receiving below-inflation increases..

	2020	2021	2022	2023	Total	Avg.
Calgary	1.50%	1.50%	1.50%	2.00%	6.50%	1.63%
Edm – DTAS	0.00%	1.00%	2.00%	—	3.00%	1.00%
Edm – main	0.00%	0.00%	1.00%	2.00%	3.00%	0.75%
Leth – main	1.50%	1.50%	2.00%	—	5.00%	1.67%
Wood Buffalo	1.25%	2.00%	2.00%	3.00%	8.25%	2.06%

Meanwhile, the consumer price index in Alberta increased from 143.7 in December 2019 to 165.6 in December 2023. That’s a jump of 21.9 points, or 15.24%.

The closest any of these transit workers got to wages keeping up with inflation was those employed by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. Even then, inflation was almost twice as much as the wage increase they received during the same period.

Compare the annual averages of the wage increases to the 5.08% average annual increase of inflation over the same period.

If these workers are asking for wage increases to help them catch up to inflation so they can afford to live, but the employers are wanting to, once again, suppress their wages, then it’s no wonder that these workers have gone months—or years, in the case of Lethbridge—without a new contract.

Keep in mind that it’s possible some of these employers have finally agreed to contracts with their workers but still haven’t submitted copies to Alberta Jobs, Economy and Trade.