Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the August 2024 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In August, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 28 private sector and 9 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,361 and 1,857 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for 50 workers employed by Display Fixtures, which is a division of Loblaws Companies Limited and is located at the same location as the Wholesale Club in northwest Edmonton.
The workers are represented by Local 488 of the United Association of Plumbers Pipefitters and include refrigeration mechanics (including apprentices) and maintenance mechanics.
Their previous contract actually expired back in April 2022.
The new contract wasn’t settled until the following September and went into effect on 2 October 2022. Mediation Services only recently received the new contract, which is why they’re just now releasing the details.
According to the bargaining update, these workers received wage increases in each year of the new 2.5-year contract, which expires next April.
| 1 May 2022 | 2.5% |
| 7 May 2023 | 3.5% |
| 5 May 2024 | 3.5% |
That’s a combined 9.5% over 2.5 years, or an average of 3.8% per year, which is way better than the four years of wage freezes they got in their last contract.
Keep in mind, however, that only journey-level mechanics were set to get an increase in 2024, according to the collective agreement.
Even for the journey-level workers, we must keep perspective when determining whether a 9.5% raise is a sufficient increase.
The consumer price index of Alberta jumped from 137.2 in May 2017 to 169.1 in May 2024. That’s an increase of 31.9 points, or 23.25%.
So, while these workers—at least the journey-level ones—were getting a 9.5% wage increase over the last 7 years, inflation increased by more than double that amount during the same period.
As a result, these workers ended up with a cut to real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 13.75%.
In other words, for every $1000 these workers were paid in May 2017, it’s now worth just $862.50, and that’s taking account the raises they got in this new contract.
To put it another way, if they bought $1000 in goods and services back in May 2017, those same goods and services would cost $1137.50 today. Either that, or they could only by $862.50 of those same goods and services
And it’s even worse for all the workers who aren’t journey-level, since they didn’t get a raise this year.
Hopefully, their next contract (which ideally will come into effect next year) will see a more significant increase that can cover that 13.5% shortfall.
No one submitted a copy of the previous collective bargaining agreement to Mediation Services, so I can’t comprehensively compare the differences between the two contracts.
