While browsing through the collective bargaining agreement database on the Government of Alberta website, I noticed a new contract for warehouse workers.
These workers are employed by Aramark Canada, which contracts out food services to other companies. In this case, they provide such services for Shepherd’s Care at 3 of their Edmonton locations: Kensington, Millwoods, and Vanguard. Shepherd’s Care is an Edmonton-based non-profit offering care and accommodations for seniors.
These 140 or so workers are represented by Local 987 of the Teamsters and their previous contracts had expired this past July (see here, here, and here). They include kitchen staff, housekeepers, servers, custodians, laundry workers, production aids, and dietary aids.
The workers at each workplace settled on a new 1-year contract in September (see here, here, and here).
And what did they get in this contract? Well, Mediation Services hasn’t received the entire contract yet, so I can’t provide a comprehensive comparison between the two contracts. However, they did include pay increases.
Workers at each workplace got a 2.75% wage increase effective 20 July 2024. While that seems pretty decent, all of the positions other than cook will still have a starting wage of under $20 an hour.
Here’s what their raises looked like in their last contract.
| 20 July 2021 | 1.00% |
| 20 July 2022 | 1.00% |
| 20 July 2023 | 1.00% |
That’s a combined 3% over 6 years, with an annual average of, well, 1%, in case that wasn’t already clear.
This new contract is much better, but we have to remember that inflation in 2022 and 2023 was much higher than anyone could have predicted back in 2018, when this contract was settled.
Between July 2020 and July 2023, the consumer price index in Alberta increased from 144.9 to 166.0. That’s a jump of 21.1 points, or 14.56%.
When we combine the 3% wage increase over this 3-year period to the 14.56% inflation, these workers were left with a reduction in real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 11.56% coming into negotiations.
A wage increase of 2.75% this year won’t come anywhere close to being enough to cover a shortfall of nearly 12%.
Also, keep in mind that this doesn’t include the inflation between July 2023 and July 2024, which itself was 2.65%, lowering real wages to 14.21%. On top of that, we still have another year of inflation before the new contracts are up for renewal next summer.
Hopefully, the employer will open up their pocketbooks next year so these workers can see an increase of at least 15%.
The new collective agreements will expire in July 2025.
One reply on “Edmonton care home workers get 2.75% raise”
Companies would like everyone should work for ten dollars an hour. Don’t let them fool you into thinking inflation is going down. Tell them to go grocery shopping, which they probably don’t