I recently received a copy of a memorandum of agreement between the Town of Blackfalds and the unionized municipal workers they employ.
A memorandum of agreement is the final step in having a tentative collective agreement for the workers (and the employer) to ratify.
These workers fill a wide variety of occupations including recreational workers, custodians, facilities operators, development officers, clerks, IT workers, and general labourers.
The roughly 80 permanent and 60 seasonal workers are represented by Local 417 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
According to local president Deborah Schaan, the agreement was by a majority of the workers on 29 April and by the town council on 4 May.
Their previous collective agreement expired at the end of last year. It took a while to negotiate the new agreement in large part because, according to Schaan, the Town of Blackfalds came to the table with over 160 pages of proposed changes, compared to the workers tabling only 18 pages.
To help move things along, the Alberta Labour Relations Board ultimately appointed a mediator during negotiations, who met with the two parties in April and May.
The two parties were able to come to an agreement on non-monetary issues, but they couldn’t come to a consensus on wage increases. As such, the mediator issued the following recommendation:
| 1 January 2025 | $1.00 per hour |
| 1 January 2026 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2027 | 3.00% |
A dollar-based increase in the first year benefits the lower-paid workers the most, since it’ll end up a larger percentage of their wages heading into the new contract.
Some workers will receive an increase of more than 6% in their first year, while other will get an increase of less than 2%.
Either way, this is significantly better than the 0%, 1% and 2% they received in their previous contract; although it still falls short of covering the cut to real wages these workers have experienced in recent contracts.
The Town of Blackfalds argued to the mediator that “Wage increases for town employees . . . have a direct impact on the town’s budget, driving up the cost of service delivery and triggering the possibility of tax increases, service cuts, or both.”
Sounds like the provincial government needs to better fund municipalities then, if municipalities have to choose between tax increases and service cuts or helping their workers be able to afford to take care of themselves and their families.
Here are some highlights of some of the proposed changes in the memorandum of agreement.
In the previous agreement, permanent workers were protected from job loss as a result of contracting out. This has been extended to all workers.
Sick leave now explicitly doesn’t include short-term disability or long-term disability.
The probationary period has been changed from 3 months to 90 days, which is pretty close to being the same, but more specific.
In the previous contract, the employer had to provide at least 24 hours of notice to a shift change, unless there was an emergency. This has been changed to unless there are “unforeseen circumstances”.
Workers used to be able to carry over 1 week of vacation entitlement into the following year. Now they can carry over any vacation entitlement from that year into the next year. For example, any unused vacation entitlement accumulated in 2025 can be carried over into 2026, but not any that had been accumulated in 2024.
A doctor’s note may be required for sick leave over 5 days. The cutoff was 3 days in the previous contract.
Workers can used up to 3 days of their sick leave to care for immediate family members. Who counted as an immediate family member was previously undefined. Now, it includes parent, spouse, parent-in-law, child (including step and foster), and anyone for whom they’re the legal guardian.
Pregnancy loss leave has been added to the collective agreement, giving workers who experience pregnancy loss within 16 weeks of the estimated due date. This worker can take maternity leave, but won’t qualify for parental leave, and it maxes out at 16 weeks.
However, bereavement leave also covers pregnancy loss, and is available to workers who were pregnant, workers who are the partner of the pregnant person, and workers who would’ve otherwise been a parent (adoptive, surrogate, etc).
Domestic violence leave is also new to the agreement and is up to 10 days per calendar year for workers who have been employed for at least 90 days.
The Joint Health and Safety Committee used to be composed of 4 workers and 5 employer representatives. Now, it’s 4 of each.
Language was changed throughout the agreement to be more gender-neutral (changing his or he to their, for example).
