Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update regarding contract negotiations for workers employed at Monterey Place Seniors Village.
This 107-unit type-B continuing care facility in northeast Calgary is operated by Monterey Seniors Village 3 Limited Partnership, also operating as Retirement Concepts.
The partnership is between West Coast Senior Housing Management and Cedar Tree Investment Canada Inc., both of which are based out of Vancouver. In 2017, a Chinese-based private equity firm—Anbang Insurance—purchased a controlling stake in Cedar Tree.
AUPE represents over 150 workers at Monterey Place. They include licensed practical nurses, health care aides, recreational aides, reception workers, cooks, servers, housekeepers, and maintenance assistants.
The most recent collective agreement for these workers expired in March 2024, over 2.5 years ago. That agreement ended up mediated and was ratified more than a year and a half after the previous one had expired and was not retroactive to that expiry date; although they did receive small retroactive wage increases.
Bargaining on the new agreement did not start until earlier this year. In fact, the bargaining team for the workers did not finalize their proposals until last November.
The workers’ bargaining team presented their monetary proposal—which includes wages and benefits—to the employer at negotiations in June.
The two parties met again last month, and the employer presented their counteroffers.
Workers are asking for asking for 3% over 4 years, which is what similar workers in Alberta’s public sector have been getting since early last year.
However, the employer wants to give the workers 2% per year over the same period. That is the difference between 12% and 8%.
Their last wage increase was in April 2023, and the starting wage for some workers was $15.88 an hour, just 88¢ above Alberta’s minimum wage, which is already the lowest in the country.
Starting wages for everyone else except for licensed practical nurses is under $24 an hour, and if we exclude maintenance assistants, it us under $22 an hour.
The living wage in Calgary of $26.50 per hour.
According to AUPE, workers at Monterey Place are making significantly less than what their peers are making with Alberta Health Services.
| Health care aides | 14–15% less |
| Lincensed practical nurses | 16–10% less |
| Housekeepers | 26–36% less |
| Administrative workers | 34–38% less |
| Food-service workers | 32–29% less |
Even if these workers got the 12% they are asking for, it still would not be enough to bring them up to what their peers are making. They would need market adjustments as well.
Here is a look at their wage increases in their last two collective agreements.
| 1 April 2017 | 1.50% |
| 1 April 2018 | 1.00% |
| 1 April 2019 | 3.00% |
| 1 April 2020 | 1.00% |
| 1 April 2021 | 1.00% |
| 1 April 2022 | 1.75% |
| 1 April 2023 | 2.00% |
| 11.25% |
Keep in mind that in October 2018, some workers got a wage increase when the provincial minimum wage increased to $15 an hour—the last time it saw an increase—because they were making under $15 an hour. As a result, most of them did not receive an additional 3% the following April.
In comparison, the consumer price index in Alberta increased by 28.6 points from 135.1 points in April 2016 to 163.7 points in April 2023, a jump of 21.17%.
Because inflation was 21.17% during their last two collective agreements, but their wages were increased by 11.25%, they were left with a cut to real wages of 9.92%.
Remember, that is just until April 2023, which was 3.5 years ago, which means another 3.5 years of inflation, plus more inflation over the remainder of the new agreement.
For example, inflation between April 2023 and August 2026 has already hit 9.47%, functionally doubling their real wage cut.
Even if we account for compounding wage increases over the last two collective agreements, that would give us a combined wage increase of 11.79% instead of 11.25%, which lowers the real wage cut slightly to 9.38%.
Either way, a 12% wage increase over 4 years is insufficient, so an 8% raise is completely ludicrous.
Because the employer refuses to pay these workers what they are worth, despite subsidies from the provincial government, the workers’s bargaining team filed for informal mediation.
The two parties will meet with the mediator about 2 months from now, during the first week of December.
