Central Alberta ed. workers get 10% raise

Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the September–October 2024 Bargaining Update.

This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In the months of September and October, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 36 private sector and 31 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 3,408 and 4,855 workers respectively.

Among those settlements was a contract for about 220 education support workers employed by the Wild Rose School Division.

These workers are represented by the Central Alberta Association of Municipal and School Employees. They include educational assistants, library workers, vocational assistants, administrative staff, family wellness workers, speech language pathology workers, and school business coordinators.

Based out of the community of Rocky Mountain House, Wild Rose School Division oversees schools in Breton, Caroline, Condor, Drayton Valley, Leslieville, and Rocky Mountain House.

Their previous contract expired 31 August 2024. The new contract was settled the day before.

These workers are set to get wage increases in each year of the new 4-year contract, which expires in August 2028.

1 September 2024	3.00%
1 September 2025	3.00%
1 September 2026	2.00%
1 September 2027	2.00%

This works out to a combined wage of 10% over the the life of the contract—or 10.38% if you account for compounding increases—averaging out to 2.50% (2.59%) per year.

It’s also much better than the 2.75% they got in their last contract.

1 September 2020	0.00%
1 September 2021	0.00%
1 September 2022	0.00%
1 June 2023	1.25%
1 February 2024	1.50%

Clearly, 3 years of wage freezes means these workers have seen their real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—drop during this time.

Inflation between September 2019 and September 2023 increased by 16.17%.

During that same period, wages increased only 1.25%, leaving a cut to real wages of 14.92%. That means that the 1.5% this past February and the 10% in this new contract won’t be enough to make up for the loss in real wages—they’ll still be nearly 3.5% short. Plus, that’s not even counting the inflation over the life of this new contract.

I mean, inflation between September 2023 and September 2024 is just shy of 2%, so we’re already back up to almost 6%, with 3 more years to go.

In the plus side, it didn’t take two years to settle this contract (unlike the previous contract), and 10% is better than the 7.5% being offered to a bunch of other public sector workers (see here, here, here, here, here, and here).

The only other significant change in the collective agreement had to do with health insurance premiums.

Under the previous contract, the Wild Rose School Division paid 100% of the health plan premiums for workers with an annual full-time equivalency of 0.5 or greater.

With the new contract, however, this benefit will be available for only workers who are 0.8 FTE or higher. Workers between 0.5 and 0.8 FTE will have their coverage prorated, based on their full-time equivalency.