Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the March 2025 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In March, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 14 private sector and 23 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 1,560 and 12,565 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for over 200 workers employed by Qualicare. Technically, it was for two contracts.
Based out of Ontario, Qualicare offers home care and long-term care in locations throughout North America, including one in St. Albert and one in Fort Saskatchewan, which are the employers covered in these two contracts.
The contracts cover about 141 workers employed at Citadel Care Centre in St. Albert and about 75 workers out of the Rivercrest Lodge Nursing Home in Fort Saskatchewan.
Both groups of workers are represented by Local 1-207 of the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, otherwise known as the United Steelworkers.
They include health care aides, housekeepers, food workers, laundry workers, recreational workers, maintenance workers, licensed practical nurses, physical and occupational therapy workers, and clerks.
The previous contracts for both locations expired last year: in June for the St. Albert workers and July for the Fort Saskatchewan workers. This new contracts were settled several months later, with the latter settling this past January and the former in February.
The new collective agreements are both for just 2 years, which is pretty much the same as the previous agreements.
These workers are set to receive just one wage increase in their new contracts. Both groups will get a 2% wage increase in their first year, with St. Alberta workers having theirs retroactive to July and 2024 and the Fort Saskatchewan workers getting their raise retroactive to August 2024.
Both groups of workers are set to reopen negotiations with their employers this summer to discuss a wage increase for the second year of the contracts.
They had a wage reopener in their last contracts, which resulted in a 2% increase in the final year of the contract.
Keep in mind that inflation in Alberta between July 2022 and July 2024 was 5.58%, so the first raise in the new contracts and the last raise of the last contracts (combined 4%) fall short of meeting inflation over the last two year.
These workers should get at least 4% in the final year of the new contracts just to get caught up from being behind inflation over the last two years and accounting for inflation in the last year of their new contracts.
Here’s a look at what else has changed between the previous collective agreement and the new one.
The weekend shift premium has increased from $2.25 an hour to $2.50 an hour for just the St. Albert workers.
St. Albert workers who have to work on Christmas Day will be paid double their regular pay rate. This wasn’t specified in their previous contract.
For the Fort Saskatchewan workers, they got the following addition to their collective agreement:
4.10 When requested the Employer shall provide the Union with a list of Employees in the bargaining unit, their mailing addresses and their phone numbers known to the Employer.
They also got this new section regarding the adjustment of full-time equivalent.
8.11 The Employer and the Union acknowledges the desire of some Part Time Employees to increase their Full Time Equivalences’. Accordingly, in those situations when regular part time hours have been posted and no one has bid on them, the following shall apply:
- The available hours will be posted with the stipulation that they can be blended with your current FTE.
- In order to qualify for the additional available hours, the increase to your FTE would have to be Collective Agreement compliant.
- The Employer will notify the Union in writing of the successful candidate.
- This Letter of Understanding will not change or alter the posting procedure outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
- A Part Time Employee may become a Full Time Employee through the operation of this Letter of Understanding.
They also received a new article on contracting out:
In the unlikely event the Employer was to contract out any services under the bargaining unit, they would firstly consult with the Union prior to proceeding.
Both contracts had various minor edits for clarification and grammar.
