Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the January 2025 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In December, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 28 private sector and 11 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 4,351 and 944 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for about 130 workers employed by InnVest Hotels.
Based out of Toronto, InnVest Hotels own over 100 hotels across Canada, including the Sheraton Suites Calgary Eau Claire, which these workers operate.
The workers in this collective agreement are all those employed at this hotel except those working in accounting, sales, and marketing.
These include all those in guest services, the front desk, reservations, housekeeping, engineer, and dining. They’re represented by Local 4050 of Unifor.
This is only their second collective agreement since unionizing in the summer of 2019.
The previous contract for these workers expired in October 2023. The new contract was settled in May 2024, 7 months later; although Mediation Services only recently received their copy. The previous contract took over a year to negotiate after the workers unionized, so 7 months is progress.
The new collective agreement is for just over 3 years expiring at the end of 2026. This is slightly longer than their last agreement, which was for exactly 3 years.
The workers are set to receive wage increases in every year of their new contract.
| 20 October 2023 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2025 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2026 | 2.00% |
This combined increase of 7% over the life of the collective agreement is more than the 6.1% fellow workers at The Fairmont Palliser received in a contract nearly a year before, in July 2023.
The last contract for the Sheraton workers gave them a 10¢ market adjustment in their first year and 10¢ market adjustment with a 1% increase in their second year, so this increase is much more significant.
There were hardly any changes between the old collective agreement and the new one, beyond wages, but here is what I found.
This clause was added to the first step of the griveance procedure:
Neither the termination of employment of a probationary employee or a casual employee shall be conveyed by the union further than step one of the grievance procedure.
The following clauses were added to article 18:
18.01 When an employee is unable to perform the duties of the employee’s position by reason of disability, the employer will provide reasonable accommodation as required by the Alberta Human Rights Act. Any such accommodation request or modification of duties request must be supported by documentation from the Employee’s attending physician or medical specialist.
18.02 The company may require an employee to attend an independent medical examination (“IME”) by a medical specialist chosen by the employer in circumstances determined appropriate by the employer. The costs of the IME shall be borne by the employer.
And that‘s pretty much it.
