Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update regarding contract negotiations for care home workers in Edmonton.
These 100 or so workers work at the Riverbend Retirement Living facility in northwest Edmonton. They include dishwashers, cooks, activity aides, bus drivers, and those working in maintenance and reception.
Ontario-based Cogir Senior Living manages the facility, which it also operates under the brand Venvi Living. The owner, Revera Retirement Living, announced in 2023 that it was transitioning away from managing the facilities they owned and transferring that to 3 different companies.
In this particular case, that company was Cogir.
That was also the same year that the most recent collective agreement for these workers expired. In fact, the employer finally agreed to a tentative agreement just weeks before it expired, with the workers finally being able to ratify in October 2023, just 2.5 months before expiry.
Here we are 3 years later, and the employer just barely met with the workers’ bargaining committee at the end of last month for the first time to begin bargaining on a new collective agreement.
If it ends up being a 4-year agreement, then it will expire at the end of next year, which gives them just over a year before expiry, assuming they even reach an agreement right away, which seems unlikely considering how much Cogir is trying to undercut wages.
At last month’s bargaining session, Cogir promised 3 wage increases of just 1.1% each.
| 2024 | 1.10% |
| 2025 | 1.10% |
| 2026 | 1.10% |
Because they delayed negotiations for so long, these would all be retroactive increases.
They tried to offer the same wage increase to some of their workers in Calgary earlier this year. Those workers still do not have a new collective agreement; although, they started mediation last month.
Here is a look at their wage increases over their last 2 collective agreements:
| 1 January 2018 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2019 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2020 | 1.75% |
| 1 January 2021 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2022 | 1.75% |
| 1 January 2023 | 1.75% |
| 11.25% |
Now, 11.25% over 6% is about 1.88% per year, so Cogir’s offer of 1.1% is the lowest these workers would have received in a decade, if approved.
But it looks even worse if we look at inflation.
In January 2017, the consumer price index in Alberta sat at 137.0 points. By the time January 2023 rolled around, it had increased 23.5 points to 160.5, which works out to 17.15%.
Because inflation was 17.5% during the time these workers saw their wages increase by 11.2%, they ended up with a cut to real wages of around 5.9% heading into contract negotiations.
A combined wage increase of 3.3% will not be enough to make up for wages that are roughly 6 percentage points behind inflation.
Keep in mind that real wages factor in inflation only to their last wage increase, which was in January 2023. Inflation has increased another 11.28% since then, and there would still be even more inflation before the theoretical agreement would expire next year.
These workers would be easily over 15 percentage points behind inflation by the end of this collective agreement if they agreed to it.
On top of this, starting wages for everyone except for maintenance workers and cooks were still under $20 an hour at the end of the last contract, which is where they have been frozen for the last—almost—4 years.
The living wage in Edmonton was $22.30 an hour as of last year, which only maintenance workers were making as a starting wage.
Activity aides and reception workers had a starting wage of $16.36 an hour at the end of their most recent collective agreement. Getting them up to a living wage would require a 36.31% wage increase.
It is clear that Cogir has every intention of keeping these workers below a living wage, which is how much a worker needs to earn to cover their basic expenses and participate in their community.
The workers’ bargaining committee, on the other hand, have proposed getting the same wage increases that similar workers employed by Alberta Health Services, which is 12% over 4 years.
This still falls short of both making up for lost real wages and gettign to a living wage, but it is way better than 3.3%.
They also asked for unspecified improvements in shift premiums, vacation days, sick leave, and health benefits.
The two parties will meet again next month to try again. They also have scheduled a session in January to work on an essential services agreement, which is necessary before heading into formal mediation, if it comes to that.
