Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on contract negotiations for workers employed by Civida.
Previously known as Capital Region Housing, Civida is among the largest housing management bodies in Alberta, overseeing more than 5,300 homes in Edmonton.
The 100 or so AUPE members they employ include administrative support, asset managers, communications workers, clerks, analysts, occupational health and safety coordinators, IT workers, and procurement workers.
These workers have been working off an expired contract, ever since their last one ran out at the end of last year.
Negotiations this month (on the 11th and 12th) focused on monetary items, including wage increases. Here is what the employer proposed for raises during a 3-year contract:
| 1 January 2025 | 2.50% |
| 1 January 2026 | 2.25% |
| 1 January 2027 | 2.00% |
That is a combined increase of 6.75%, for an average of 2.25% per year. This is better than the annual average of 1.75% the workers received in their last collective agreement.
Here are the raises they received over their two most recent collective agreements.
| 1 January 2019 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2020 | 1.00% |
| 1 January 2021 | 1.00% |
| 1 January 2022 | 1.50% |
| 1 January 2023 | 1.50% |
| 1 January 2024 | 1.50% |
Clearly, this proposal is better than they have received in recent years.
However, the workers’ bargaining team called it “a lowball offer” because it “does not come close to meeting [their] needs” and “is well below other settlements across the province”.
As we can see above, the workers received a combined 8.5% wage increase over the last two collective agreements.
On the surface, that might seem like a reasonable increase, we get a better understanding of the workers’ take on it when we compare it to inflation.
In January 2018, the last time the workers received a raise prior to the two most contracts, the consumer price index in Alberta sat at 138.9 points. 6 years later, in January 2024, it had risen 27 points to 165.9 points.
That is a 19.44% increase.
While these workers were getting an 8.5% raise, inflation was increasing by more than twice that amount, leaving them with a cut to real wages of 10.94%.
Even with a combined raise of 6.75%, these workers will still be left with a real wage cut of 4.19%.
And remember, that 6.75% is spread out over 3 years, which means we will have 3 more years of inflation, which will drive up the real wage cut even more. Inflation between their last raise in January 2024 and their first raise of the new agreement, if it was ratified, has already increased by 2.53%.
Civida should have come in with an offer of at least 11%, to make up for the real wage cut over the last two contracts, followed by between 2% and 3% in each of the following 2 years, to cover inflation in those years.
The bargaining team for these workers said last week that negotiations are at an impasse, so they have applied for mediation.
Hopefully, the mediator can get better raises than this for these workers, but I am not holding my breath.
