Earlier this month, Alberta Mediation Services released their bargaining update for November and December 2023. One of the updates in there was for workers employed by the City of Chestermere.
The Alberta Labour Relations Board certified these 127 workers as a bargaining unit back in January 2022, and they had been attempting to get a first contract with the City of Chestermere as of 17 June 2022, when they served notice to bargain.
Instead of sitting down with the workers and bargaining in good faith for a first contract, however, the City of Chestermere engaged in several unionbusting tactics, according to Local 37 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the union that represents these workers.
Negotiations for these workers eventually went to mediation, which resulted in the new contract, which was ratified last month.
Mediation Services didn’t provide a lot of details on the new 3-year contract, which is effective to last January, other than wage increases.
| 1 January 2023 | 0.0% |
| 1 January 2024 | 2.5% |
| 1 January 2025 | 2.5% |
The workers’ first wage increase only came into effect this month, a year after the start of the contract. They were scheduled to see a 2.5% increases at the start of this month, with a similar increase next month.
That works out to an average of 1.67% per year during the life of the contract.
The workers were supposed to get a $750 lump sump payment for backpay for the 2023 work year, which is better than nothing, but the problem with lump sum payments is that they don’t increase the base salary.
For example, if a worker made $30,000 in 2022, then should’ve received $30,750 in 2023. The 2.5% increase in 2024, however, will be based on $30,000, not $30,750.
On another note, in January 2022, the consumer price index for Alberta was 152.8. A year later, it was 160.5. That’s a 5.03% increase.
So, while these workers were getting a wage freeze last year, inflation in Alberta rose by 5% during the same period.
We don’t have consumer price index up to January 2024, so we can’t compare the next raise to inflation over the past year. We do have up to this past November, however.
Between January 2022 and November 2023, inflation increased by 8.38%. This means that even if we add this month’s increase and next January’s increase together, it won’t be enough to cover the increase in inflation since before this contract came into effect.
And remember, that’s not including inflation this year or next year yet.
These workers are seeing a cut to their real wages, which is wages adjusted for inflation. If you get a 5.0% wage increase, but inflation is 8.38%, then your real wages actually decreased by 3.38%.
Hopefully their 2026 contract can make up for these lost wages.
