75 school bus drivers get 4 years of wage freezes

Last week, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the July 2024 Bargaining Update.

This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. Last month, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 26 private sector and 10 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,032 and 6,698 workers respectively.

One of those settlements was for bus drivers employed in the Foothills School Division and represented by the Foothills School Division School Bus Drivers Association.

Based out of High River, the Foothills School Division oversees the administration of schools in several bedroom communities of Calgary, including Blackie, Cayley, Diamond Valley, High River, Longview, Millarville, and Okotoks.

Because of the rural nature of much of the school district, school bus transportation is a critical component of ensuring students make it to school.

Yet despite, the necessity of these 75 or so school bus drivers, they had been without a new contract for over 4 years. Their previous contract expired in August 2019, and this newest one was settled last September.

Even so, the new contract expires at the end of this month. The employer dragged their feet so long, that by the time the two parties finally settled on a contract, there was less than a year left in the new contract.

One of the handy things for employers when the draw out negotiations is that it becomes easier to justify wage freezes. After all, if the time has already passed and the workers got along fine without raises, then we can just start raises from this point, and keep the status quo for previous years.

Take a look at the wage increases in the new contracts:

	1st year
September 2019	0.00%
September 2020	0.00%
September 2021	0.00%
September 2022	0.00%
September 2023	1.25%
February 2024	1.50%

See? This employer held back wages for each year of the contract except for the final year, after ratification.

Too bad the workers haven’t been able to hold back price increases on groceries and housing over the last 5 years. This sucky wage increase wouldn’t suck so much then.

And that’s not even including the two years of wage freezes in their previous contract either:

	1st year
September 2016	0.00%
September 2017	0.00%
September 2018	1.00%

So, since September 2015, these workers have received 6 years of wage freezes and a combined wage increase of just 3.75%. Meanwhile, during the same period, inflation in Alberta rose by 23.33%.

That’s a six-fold increase over the raises they got!

How are workers supposed to provide for themselves and their families when inflation is increasing six times as their wages?

With the new contract expiring at the end of this month, I hope the Foothills School Division takes negotiations more seriously and makes sure these bus drivers make a proper wage.

And I hope the Alberta government makes sure the school division has the money they need to make this happen.

Budget cuts have real consequences on the working class.

On the plus side, these workers got improvements in the area of leave.

For example, compassionate leave for critical illness or death of a spouse, parent, child, sibling, or parent-in-law has been expanded from 3 days to 3 days plus 1 day for travel. As well, 2 days leave will be available for the death of a grandparent, sibling-in-law, child-in-law, or grandparent-in-law, with an extra day for travel.

Workers will also be eligible for up to 2 days of leave to attend their own post-secondary convocation or that of a spouse or child. As well, if they have a child convocating from high school in the division, they can have a half day to attend the ceremony and a full day if the convocation is for a school outside the division.