Last June, I wrote an article about contract negotiations between the City of Calgary and the 2,600 so-called outside workers they employ.
At the time, their most recent contract had expired at the end of 2023, and its duration was less than a year and a half, compared to 3 years for the previous contract.
In May, the bargaining committee had presented the workers with a tentative agreement, which included a 9% wage increase over 3 years.
However, by December 2023, these workers had received a wage cut of 15.52% over two contracts, once accounting for wage increase in those contracts and inflation.
As a result, a majority of workers who participated in a ratification vote on 24 May 2024 voted to reject the proposal.
A month later, however, the bargaining committee comes back to the workers with another collective agreement: 9.5% over 3 years:
| 1st offer | 2nd offer | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January 2024 | 3.00% | 3.00% |
| 30 December 2024 | 3.00% | 3.25% |
| 29 December 2025 | 3.00% | 3.25% |
| 9.00% | 9.50% |
An addition 0.5% is better than nothing, but that still leaves a real wage cut of 6.02%. Keep in mind that this isn’t even including all the inflation that’ll come in over the life of the new contract.
Inflation between December 2023 and December 2024 was 2.8% in Alberta, for example. If inflation is like that this year and next year, we could see real wages being at 8.42% behind inflation by the end of the contract.
As I said, the bargaining committee presented it to the workers in June, and the ratification vote was held over two days in July.
According to an update posted to the website of Local 37 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents these workers, a majority of the workers who participated in the vote chose to accept the additional half a percentage point.
Here are a few highlights of other changes to the new collective agreement.
The annual boot allowance has increased from $75 to $250 for permanent workers and from $25 to $100 for temporary workers. As well, the allowance is no longer taxable.
There is a new swimsuit allowance of $100 a year for recreation workers who require one.
The shift differential increased from $1.00 per hour to $1.10 per hour for all hours worked between 18:00 and 07:00.
Gender expression was added to the section on discrimination.
A union representative can accompany any worker who wishes to view their personnel file. This was not in the previous contract.
In the previous contract, temporary workers had recall right when laid off only if they had worked 6 months with the City of Calgary. This has changed to 992 hours.
Temporary workers now have access to leave of absences, something that was reserved for permanent workers.
The following clause from the previous agreement:
Parental leave may be available within the year that the child arrives home.
has been changed to:
Parental leave may start any time after the birth or adoption of a child, however shall be completed within 78 weeks of the date the child was born or placed with the parents.
Pregnancy loss has been added to the section on bereavement leave, and the length of leave is 7 consecutive calendar days. This applies to workers who were pregnant, who were the spouse of a pregnant person, or who would otherwise become a parent from the pregnancy (i.e. via adoption or surrogacy).
Workers who aren’t full-time will now be entitled to 1 week of vation hours. In the previous contract, it was “vacation entitlement and pay based on those average weekly hours”.
Language was changed throughout to be more gender inclusive (eg. journeyperson instead of journeyman).
The new collective agreement expires at the end of 2026.
