Glenbow freezes worker wages in new contract

While recently browsing the collective bargaining agreement database maintained by the Government of Alberta, I noticed that workers at Glenbow Alberta Institute had a new collective agreement.

I covered their last collective agreement in an article I wrote at the end of 2024. Like that contract, the new one is also for just 1 year. The contract prior to that one was 3 years long, preceded itself by a 2-year agreement.

These 20 or so workers are represented by Local 1645 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and work at the Glenbow Museum or directly for the institute. They include those working in curation, conservation, education, exhibits, collections, and administration.

The new collective agreement, which expires at the end of next June, has frozen worker wages at last year’s rate.

In their last contract, which expired this past June, the workers received a 1.5% raise, which itself was less than the annual average increase of 2.17% in the contract before that.

This is the second wage freeze since 2021.

That being said, the workers are set to get a one-time lump sum payment of $1000 for full-time workers and pro-rated to no lower than $350 for part-time workers.

Something to keep in mind is that while lump sum payments are better than nothing, they do not affect the base salary.

For example, the starting wage for those in the lowest wage grid, which includes cashiers in the museum gift shop, is $16.56 an hour. That works out to $1,242.07 every 2 weeks if they work 75 hours. This adds up to $32,293.82 a year.

That increases to $33,293.82 a year when we include the lump sum payment and if the worker is full-time.

But if they negotiate wage increases in their next collective agreement, those increases will be based on $32,293.82, not $33,293.82.

Same goes for if that worker is part-time and ends up getting the minimum $350 lump sum payment.

Meanwhile, inflation in Alberta between June 2024 and June 2025 was 1.71%. This puts the workers behind inflation. Plus, that is on top of the real wage loss of over 8% they experienced heading into their last contract, when they got only 1.5%.

Here are some other ways the new collective agreement differs from the old one.

Workers who are employed through a student paid internship do not follow under this collective agreement:

2.04 Student Paid Internships
An individual who, while employed with Glenbow, is exempt from the bargaining unit. They must be engaged in a structured learning experience for the purpose of gaining practical skills and knowledge, where the primary role is educational rather than productive in nature. Generally, these positions will be conditionally funded, and the individual will receive academic credit and/or a stipend for their participation.

The clause that allows up to 4 union members to attend grievances, negotiations, and committee meetings without losing pay has been updated to include the following new information:

Full-time employees shall do so without loss of regular pay. Part-time, recurring part-time, and casual employees shall be paid at their regular hourly rate for time spent attending such meetings outside of their scheduled working hours. If attendance is required on a day they are not otherwise scheduled to work, Employees shall be compensated at regular time for all time attended, with a minimum payment of 3 hours.

The following has been removed from the collective agreement regarding layoff packages:

which may include but not be limited to: severance, career counseling, job placement and retraining. An employee’s acceptance of a severance payment reduces and limits the employees recall rights to 12 months.

The new collective agreement includes these additions regarding layoffs:

(d) Regular employees on layoff may accept temporary work as casual employee without affecting their recall status and seniority standing upon recall. Such employees shall be governed by Article 27 of the collective agreement.

(e) If an employee on layoff accepts temporary work as a casual at a lower classification, the employee shall receive the rate of pay applicable to the lower-rated classification for the duration of the assignment.

(f) If an employee on layoff accepts temporary work as a casual, the employee shall not be required to pay back any severance pay received.