Earlier this month, Alberta Mediation Services published their bargaining update for November–December 2023, which includes information on wage raises for worker contracts that were settled during those two months.
One of the new contracts is between Edmonton-based workers and their employer, Bombardier Transportation Canada.
The 17 or so workers unionized with the help of Teamsters Canada Rail Conference back in 2019, and this is their first negotiated contract.
The 3-year contract is backdated to October 2023 and will expire in October 2026.
Mediation Services didn’t provide a copy of the contract, so I can’t report on all the details in the contract, but they did include wage increases.
Here’s how they break down per year.
| 16 October 2023 | 7.0% |
| 16 October 2024 | 2.0% |
| 16 October 2025 | 2.0% |
That first increase is pretty decent, given that the consumer price index rose from 161.8 in October 2022 to 165.2 in October 2023, a 2.1% increase. So, their first wage increase will be more than inflation.
The next two years are more questionable. Inflation for the year leading up to the contract was 2.1%, which is more than the increase planned for this October. The previous year, it was 6.9%, and the year before that, it was 4.3%.
There seems to be a lot of confidence in this contract that inflation will drop this year (and again next year), but at least there’s a bit of cushion built into the first-year increases.
That being said, with this being their first contract, it’s hard to say what raises were like prior to unionization. Maybe the 7% increase is just playing catch-up and doesn’t have a cushion at all.
The new contract was settled on 8 November 2023.
Bombardier Transportation was acquired in January 2021 by Alstom, a transportation company based in France.
