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 about 50 workers employed by Mauser Packaging Solutions (also known as ICS Great Western LP).
Based out of Illinois, Mauser specializes in creating rigid packaging solutions for commercial clients. They have roughly 170 locations throughout the world, including in Calgary, Edmonton, and Lloydminster.
This collective agreement covers all workers employed by Mauser in Edmonton, except those office workers, sales reps, and those working in managerial or confidential roles.
These workers are represented by Local 21-A of Unifor. They include truck drivers, power engineers, forklift operators, shippers and receivers, wastewater workers, painters, and inspectrors.
Their previous contract expired in May 2024, and the workers ratified their new contract on 30 July 2024, about 2.5 months later, but Mediation Services only recently received it.
They’ve gone from a 5-year contract to a 3-year contract.
This new collective agreement includes wage increases in every one of those three years.
| 16 May 2024 | 2.5% |
| 16 May 2025 | 3.0% |
| 16 May 2026 | 3.0% |
That’s a combined 8.5% (or 8.74% if you account. for compound increases). This works out to an average of 2.83% (2.91%) per year.
Here are some highlights of things that have changed in this new contract.
They removed the following clause:
2.04 The parties recognize and agree that any reference in this agreement to “he” or “his” shall also mean “she” or “her” in regard to female employees.
Instead, the contract has replaced masculine pronouns (such as he and his) with gender-neutral terms (such as they and their). As well, they’ve replaced journeyman with journeyperson.
Under the previous collective agreement, Mauser paid 100% of the cost of major medical and pharmaceutical coverage. This dropped to 90% in 2021 and 80% in 2022. Now, it’s dropped to 70% in the new contract. That includes dental coverage.
The lead hand premium has increased from 50¢ an hour to $1 an hour.
There is a new letter of understanding appended to the collective agreement that states if Mauser (or the union) chooses to implement an apprenticeship programme, the two parties will meet to discuss the potential programme. Both parties ust agree to the programme before it can be implemented.
