Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update regarding negotiations on a collective agreement for workers employed by Carewest.
The employer is the largest public care provider in Calgary. Their workers operate 14 locations throughout the city that offer long-term care, mental health care, alternate level of care, rehabilitation and recovery services, and community programmes and services.
AUPE represents about 1,600 Carewest workers employed in so-called auxiliary nursing care, which included licensed practical nurses and health care aides.
Their most recent collective agreement expired over 2 years ago, in June 2024.
Talks started to break down earlier this year, after a March bargaining meeting was rescheduled to 3 months later. That session, which was supposed to focus on wages and benefits, ended with the employer refusing to concede on what the workers’ bargaining team was asking for.
For example, they refused “to improve compensation to new HCAs in line with other health care employers, not accepting our proposals for fair increases to our health benefits, and not meeting our needs for transportation reimbursement”.
Earlier this month, AUPE filed a bad-faith bargaining complaint with the Alberta Labour Relations Board, after Carewest said they were going to shut down their Rouleau Manor and lay off everyone there. They said they could apply for positions at the recently opened Bridgeland facility, which, coincidentally is not yet unionized.
When negotiations came to a standstill in June, the workers’ bargaining team filed for informal mediation with the ALRB.
According to last week’s update, the mediator has proposed a deal, which the worker will have to vote on whether to accept it.
They are set to receive a 3% wage increase in every year of the four-year contract, which is similar to what other health care workers have been receiving in recent contracts in Alberta.
The first 3 wage increases will be retroactive since so much time has gone by that the contract is already more than half over.
| 1 July 2024* | 3.00% |
| 1 July 2025* | 3.00% |
| 1 July 2026* | 3.00% |
| 1 July 2027* | 3.00% |
| 12.00% |
This is much higher than the 4.25% they received in their last contract. And that follows negotiated wage freezes in 2017 and 2018, an arbitrator-mandated wage freeze in 2019.
Between July 2016 and July 2023, the consumer price index in Alberta increased 30.4 points, from 135.6 points to 166.0 points. That is a jump of 22.41%.
During a period, where these workers ended up with 4 years of wage freezes and a 4.25% wage increase in the final 3 years, inflation rose by more than 22%, leaving them with a real wage cut of 18.17% heading into contract negotiations.
A 12% increase will eat into that 18.17% wage cut, but it would still leave them over 6 percentage points behind inflation.
And that is not even counting inflation during the new agreement, if it is ratified. Inflation in Alberta since July 2023 has already increased by nearly 8%, for example.
That brings their real wages to a combined loss of 15.9%, and they still have nearly 2 years of inflation still to go.
To be fair, the mediator has proposed giving a market adjustment of 10% for licensed practical nurses and 4% for health care aides, which is certainly better than more wage freezes, but it still falls short of covering the loss in real wages that will surely top 20% by the end of the proposed contract.
The mediator also proposed eliminating the two lowest-paid steps in the wage grid for health care aides. Step 3 would become the new step 1, and nearly 300 health care aides will benefit from this wage bump, which will be on top of the other wage increases mentioned above.
If workers ratify this proposal, they could see theyr flexible spending account increase by $100 per year, going from $1,100 to $1,200. That would not take effect until the start of next year.
Preceptor pay would increase from 65¢ an hour to $2 an hour, but would not be retroactive.
Likewise, in-charge pay would increase from $1.50 an hour to $3.50 an hour. This is similar to what workers receive who are employed with Alberta Health Services.
The mediator proposed Carewest fully covering the cost of registration fees for health care aides, as well as reimbursing liability-insurance payments made by both licensed practical nurses and health care aides.
Several health benefits would increase.
| Old | Proposed | |
|---|---|---|
| Massage therapy | $50 per visit | $80 per visit |
| Occupational therapy | $50 per visit | $75 per visit |
| Physiotherapy | $50 per visit | $75 per visit |
Piblings and niblings have been proposed to be included in the family definition for leaves of absences.
Diabetic coverage would expand to include glucose monitors and would no longer require 12-month insulin treatment nor an order from a healthcare provider.
Carewest would cover the cost of doctor’s notes they require, and there would no longer be a $30 fee maximum.
The negotiating team will hold an information tonight and another one on Thursday afternoon. Voting will open on 5 October and end on 9 October.
