Last month, Mediation Services released their September 2025 Bargaining Update, which releases information on new collective agreements they received in September.
According to the update, they received bargaining information from “39 bargaining relationships encompassing 37,504 employees. There were 20 private sector and 19 public sector settlements, covering 4,565 and 32,939 employees, respectively.”
One of the bargaining agreements highlighted in the report was for workers employed by the Alberta New Democrat Party.
These workers are represented by Local 397 of the Canadian Office & Professional Employees Union.
The last collective agreement for these workers expired at the end of 2023. Their new one was not settled until this past March, over a year later.
It seems as though the Alberta NDP takes a while to ratify agreements with their workers, as their last agreement took a year and half past the expiration of the agreement prior to that one. And the one previous to that took a year to ratify.
Workers can expect to see a 12% wage increase over the life of the 4-year contract, which is similar to what the UCP government is offering to public sector workers.
| 1 January 2024 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2025 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2026 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2027 | 3.00% |
That is better than what they got in their last contract, which was around 10% over 4 years. This increase was frontloaded, with a 7.81% increase in the first year and a 2.15% increase in the second year, followed by wage freezes in the last two years of that contract.
Meanwhile, inflation in Alberta increased 18.08% between January 2019 and 2024.
Since their wages increased by only about 10% in their last contract, this left them with an 8% cut to real wages heading into negotiations. That means their 12% raise in their new contract ends up being only 4%.
Now, keep in mind, that is accounting for inflation between 2019 and 2024 only. Inflation during the term of the new collective agreement will widen the wage–inflation gap even further.
Inflation between January 2024 and September 2025, for example, has already reached 3.92%, already eating up that 4% adjusted raise. And we have two full years of inflation (and the last quarter of 2025) still to come.
Here are some highlights of other changes in the collective agreement.
The following was added to the collective agreement:
Employees shall have the right to seek nomination for election as candidates as well as the right to refuse such encouragement for nomination to run for election.
According to the collective agreement, workers who are hired by the Alberta NDP for the pre-election, election, and post-election periods are not covered by the collective agreement. Under the previous agreement, the pre-election period was 6 months prior to the election period. In the new agreement, the pre-election period is now 1 year before the election period.
Senior organizers have been added to the list of positions that qualify for the $400 car allowance. The director of organization is no longer listed as a position qualifying for the car allowance.
In the previous collective agreement, workers who needed to use a cell phone for work would either receive a phone or be reimbursed for one. This has been slightly adjusted in the new agreement, by specifying that the reimbursement cost will be maxed out at the cost of a work cell phone plan.
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation has been added to the list of holidays that are used to determine stat pay. That list is now up to 14 holidays.
The Alberta NDP does not provide its workers a pension. Instead, they offer a payment into a worker’s RRSP account, if they have one. In the previous contract, the payment was $350. That has increased to $500. As well, the contract now specifies that payments will be made monthly, something that was absent in the last contract. As well, workers have the option of having the RRSP payment added to their paycheque, so they can manage the deposit themselves.
Jury duty pay now includes the jury selection process.
The health and wellness benefit has increased from $300 per year to $350 per year.
