Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the June 2025 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In June, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 29 private sector and 18 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 12,522 and 2,253 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for about 200 electrical workers employed by the City of Calgary.
Local 254 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents these workers, which include electricians, intrumentation technicians, planners, dispatchers, groundpersons, storekeepers, power systems workers, safety codes oficers, and related labourers.
Their previous contract expired in March 2024. Their new contract was ratified in February 2025, nearly a year later. It is not retroactive to when the last one expired.
To make up for that, the workers will receive 3 wage increases for a contract that is less than 2 years long, expiring at the end of next year. They are all retroactive raises.
| 1 January 2024 | 3.00% |
| 1 December 2024 | 3.25% |
| 1 February 2025 | 3.25% |
This will result in a combined increase of 9.5% over the life of the collective agreement. That averages out to, well, 3.17% per year.
This is much better than what they received in their last contract, which was for 3 years:
| 29 March 2021 | 1.50% |
| 28 March 2022 | 1.50% |
| 27 March 2023 | 2.00% |
By the end of the new contract, hourly wages will range from $29.69 for labourers to $72.76 for power systems coordinators.
Here are some highlights of other things that are in this first contract.
Anyone on long-term disability or workers compensation shall accrue service for future service pay entitlement. This was previously available to just those on long-term disability.
Under the old agreement, workers who were entitled to 3 weeks or more vacation could save and carry forward to a future vacation period 1 week of annual vacation per annum to a maximum of 6 weeks. This has been changed to all workers and they can save and carry forward up to 320 hours of vacation time, provided that they had taken off the minimum provincially legislated vacation time.
The shift premium has increased from $1.00 an hour to $1.10 an hour for those who work between 15:00 and 07:00 the following morning.
Workers who perform overtime work of 3 hours or more will be paid overtime rat on their next regular shift, as long as it infringes on the 8-hour period immediately prior to their next regular work period. In the previous agreement, it had to be 4 or more hours.
Bereavement leave now includes leave for pregnancy loss. The leave is the same: 7 days of paid leave. It is available to workers who were pregnant, workers who are the spouse of the pregnant person, or others who would have been parents (through adoption or surrogacy, for example).
The previous contract stated that parental leave may be available with the year that the child arrives home. That has been changed in the new contract to parental leave may begin any time after the birth or adoption of a child, but it must be completed with 78 weeks of the birth/placement.
Boot allowance has increased from $75 a year to $250 a year.
Three new positions were listed in the job classification article: power systems journeyperson, power systems working foreman/leadhand, and power systems coordinator.
