Cgy & Edm area ed workers may strike soon

Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report for February 2025. In it were several applications for strike votes.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees filed all the applications on 29 January. CUPE represents educations support workers throughout Alberta, which includes librarians, food workers, custodians, maintenance and trade workers, administrative assistants, and educational assistants.

First up is Local 40 of CUPE, which represents custodial and maintenance workers employed by the Calgary Board of Education. Their last contract expired in August 2024.

As of the end of 2024, the school board had yet to meet with the workers’ bargaining team; although they were planning to meet on the 7th and 8th of January.

According to the ALRB’s report, a new collective agreement would apply to 827 workers.

These workers received a combined 7.75% wage increase in their last contract, but that’s nothing following 8 years in a row of wage freezes.

Also in Calgary are custodial and maintenance workers employed by the Calgary Catholic School Division. They are represented by Local 520, and their most recent contract also expired in August 2024. The ALRB report says that a new contract would apply to 361 workers.

These workers received a 3.75% raise in their last contract, which came on the heels of 7 years of wage freezes. So that’s even worse than their public school counterparts

Nearby in the Foothills School Division—which is based out of High River, but oversees schools in Blackie, Cayley, Diamond Valley, Longview, and Okotoks—311 educational assistants, secretaries, youth development coaches, CTS instructors, librarians, office administrators and technology workers are set to participate in a strike vote.

Their most recent contract also expired last August, just one day after the workers, represented by Local 5040, ratified it and 4 years after the previous one expired.

The contract gave them a 2.75% increase spread out over the final two years, but they got wage freezes in 5 of the previous 6 years, and the one raise they got in that period was for just 1%.

Moving further north, the Parkland School Division, based out of Stony Plain, has schools in Athabasca, Duffield, Entwistle, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Tomahawk, and Wabamun.

They’re supposed to be bargaining with 433 educational assistants, administrative support and secretaries, technology workers, finance workers, librarians, Indigenous liaisons, community and family support workers, nurses, therapy and speech language workers, food workers, transportation planners, and communications workers.

Like the others, their last contract expired this past August, just two months after being ratified. It was a 1-year contract. The workers belong to Local 5543.

They also got 2.75% in their last contract for wage increases, but unlike their fellow workers in Foothills, they got wage freezes for the full 6 years leading up to their 2023 increase.

Finally, also covering schools in Edmonton suburbs is the Black Gold School Division. Their most recent collective agreement with 557 secretaries, librarians, and educational assistants also expired in August 2024. It was ratified only the month before, after the workers had gone nearly 3 years working on an expired contract. CUPE’s Local 3484 represents these workers.

Like their fellow workers in several of the other school divisions, these workers received a 2.75% combined increase in that contract. That was preceded by just two years of wage freezes. They fared a bit better than the others in their previous contract with just one wage freeze, but the increases of 0.5% and 1% in the other years were pathetic.

Clearly, these workers are all tired of years of subpar increases and wage freezes.

Two days ago, CUPE Alberta published an update on their website confirming these 5 pending strike votes. They further added that the strike votes will take place this weekend, with the first ones occurring on Saturday and the final ones wrapping up on Monday.

The roughly 2,500 workers at the 5 school divisions could join over 4,000 striking workers in the Edmonton area and Fort McMurray, should they vote in favour of striking.

Likely, however, CUPE will take any strike mandate they receive back to the bargaining table as leverage, showing the employers that workers are prepared to strike if they don’t meet their demands or, at the very least, offer fair proposals in good faith, rather than hiding behind crappy limits placed on them by the UCP government.

Because the ALRB doesn’t archive their new application reports, I’ve included a copy of this week’s report below for your convenience.