Last month, Alberta Mediation Services published their April 2026 Bargaining Update.
The monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta.
Information published in this month’s report is based on the details from 28 collective bargaining agreements they received in April. Those agreements collectively covered over 3,300 workers, most of which were in the public sector.
The private sector submitted 17 collective agreements for over 980 workers, and the public sector submitted 11 agreements for 2,330 workers.
One of the public sector agreements was for the Town of Edson Library Board and 15 of the workers they employ, who are represented by Local 2838 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
These workers include clerks, pages, technicians, programme facilitators, and administrative support.
Local 2838 also represents municipal workers employed by the Town of Edson.
The library workers ratified their new 3-year collective agreement back in March, a little more than 2 months after their previous one had expired.
Wage increases are similar to those seen in public sector agreements over the last year or so: 3% per year.
| 1 January 2026 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2027 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2028 | 3.00% |
| 12.00% |
These are the same increases they saw in their previous agreement, which was also for 3 years.
Honestly, as far as wages are concerned, the Town of Edson has really taken care of these workers over the years, at least compared to other public sector contracts. Not a single wage freeze over the last decade, which I rarely see.
Check it out for yourself.
| 2016 | 2.50% |
| 2017 | 3.00% |
| 2018 | 3.00% |
| 2019 | 1.00% |
| 2020 | 1.50% |
| 2021 | 1.50% |
| 2022 | 2.00% |
| 2023 | 3.00% |
| 2024 | 3.00% |
| 2025 | 3.00% |
| 23.50% |
Meanwhile, inflation during the same period was 29.85%, which is 6.35 points higher than their combined increases, but a 9% wage increase will help mitigate that.
Granted, that 9% is over 3 years, which will bring more inflation. For example, inflation since January 2025 has already reach 3.82%.
That being said, these workers are in better shape than other public sector workers in the province, even though they deserve just a little bit more.
By the end of the new agreement, administrative support workers and library technicians will all be making over $30 an hour, and clerks will be just under ($29.33). At the end of the last collective agreement, just technicians were above $30.
Pages will be the only ones under $20 an hour when the agreement expires at the end of 2028, with a starting wage of just $18.20 an hour, but it increases to $19.10 an hour for level 3 pages.
Here are some highlights of other changes to this collective agreement.
Source of income was added to the anti-discrimination clause as something that workers cannot be discriminated on.
As well, the anti-discrimination clause has been expanded to include definitions for various types of harassment and discrimination, including abuse, bullying, violence, personal harassment, sexual harassment, andhostile environment.
The following was added to the collective agreement:
Employees on the bargaining committee will receive their regular rates of pay for attending bargaining committee-related meetings. The Library Manager will ensure that the Union’s bargaining committee are able to participate in planned bargaining committee-related meetings.
The collective agreement now explicitly states that disciplinary actions will be corrective and not punitive.
Shift hours have changed in the new collective agreement:
| Old hours | New hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Mon–Fri | 09:00–20:00 | 08:30–20:15 |
| Sat | 10:00–15:00 | 11:45–17:15 |
The following has been removed from the agreement:
Pages are expected to work up to 5 evenings a week and on Saturdays unless prohibited by legislation.
As was this:
An employee who is called in and required to work outside their regularly scheduled hours shall be paid for same at the rate of time and one-half .
Under the previous collective agreement, sick leave was accumulated on the basis of 2 days per month for permanent full-time workers. Now, it is accumulated at 16 hours per month.
Likewise, sick leave accumulation maxes out at 640 hours now, compared to 80 days previously, and bereavement leave and domestic violence leave have been changed from 10 days per year to 80 hours per year.
The following was also removed from the collective agreement:
Employees in the Library Page classification will receive health spending account based on the average FTE of the classification.
This clause was added to the collective agreement:
The Employer will adjust staffing levels so that no employee shall work alone when the library is open to the public. For clarity, working alone means when there is no other employee on site when the library is open to the public.
