Alberta long-term care workers ask for 35% raise

Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on their website regarding contract negotiations for workers across the province working in long-term care.

AUPE is negotiating on behalf of workers in all the health regions at the same time, even though each health region has a separate collective agreement. On that note, all of these collective agreements expire at the end of this month.

According to the update, AHS has proposed a contract for 4 years with small raises in each of those years:

1 April 2024	2.00%
1 April 2025	2.00%
1 April 2026	1.75%
1 April 2027	1.75%

Keep in mind that the most recent cost of living data we have—up to February 2024—shows an increase of 4.18% during the most recent 12-month period.

That means that the raises in the first two years combined won’t even be enough to make for the increase in inflation over just the last year, let alone inflation between now and this time next year.

And that’s not even including the fact that these workers got less than 4.5% during their entire previous contract despite inflation during the same period being 13.92%.

These workers entered negotiations with a reduction in real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 9.42%! Even if we add up all the wages to a combined 7.5%, it’s still not enough to make up for the wages lost to inflation. And more inflation over the next four years will just make it worse.

Remember, that’s just comparing the most recent contract. These workers have been screwed over by AHS for a long time.

Which is why these workers—through their democratically elected bargaining team—is pushing back with a much more aggressive proposal.

The AUPE has proposed a contract for half as long—just two years. And in that time, they want to see double-digit raises: 25% in the first year and 10% in the second.

Plus, they also have demanded two additional increases to cover scope of practice changes and market fluctuations, both of which would be effective as of 1 April 2024.

20% increase for

• Licensed practical nurses—including renal dialysis and connect care trainers
• Operating room technicians
• Orthopaedic technicians
• Personal support coordinators

15% increase for

• Health care aides
• Mental health aides
• Recreation aides
• Psychiatric aides
• Mental health therapy assistants
• Drop-in centre supervisors
• Community health representatives
• Mental health support workers
• Physiotherapy assistants
• Rehabilitation attendants
• Rehabilitation care workers
• Client care assistants

According to the AUPE, the workers’ bargaining team has also proposed increases to long service pays and shift differentials, reduced annual hours with no loss in pay, and several new shift premiums, as well as improvements to benefits, scheduling, and on-call pay.

They also asked for AHS to end the use of agency workers, which is when they contract out health care.

AHS, in contrast, wants the workers to lose benefits.

AUPE claims that the employer wants to reduce off duty time between shifts from 15.5 hours to 12 hours, which means workers will have less time off between shifts.

They also want to change weekends off from 2 in a 5-week period to 2 in a 6-week period, which reduces the number of weekends these health care workers get in a year.

AHS apparently wants to eliminate the workers’ ability to carry-over banked overtime and bank call-back pay, as well as to limit vacation carry-over to just 5 days, whereas currently there is no set maximum.

These are the initial proposals, as the bargaining teams for the employer and the workers only met for the first time on the 13th and 14th of this month. Presumably, there will be changes between the two proposals as negotiations progress. As for now, however, that’s where bargaining stands.

The next negotiation meetings are set for 17th and 18th of April.