Lethbridge care home workers to vote on 4% raise

Earlier this week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update regarding contract negotiations for continuing care workers in Lethbridge.

These workers are employed by Chantell Management at the Edith Cavell Care Centre, a 120-bed residential care facility provides continuing care services under contract with Alberta Health Services.

Next week will mark 3 years since their previous contract expired.

Included in this contract are licensed practical nurses, health care aides, and those working in the kitchen, laundry, maintenance, and housekeeping.

Negotiations have literally taken years, primarily because the employer has been dragging their feet. In the summer of 2021, for example, Chantelle Management walked away from the negotiating table, refusing to meet with the workers in good faith for over a year.

The workers’ negotiating team wanted to take bargaining to mediation, but the employer refused to meet to negotiate even the essential services agreement, which is required for mediation.  The ESA determines which services are essential services and must continue during a strike or lockout.

Instead, they wanted to just use an ESA from another bargaining process they used with workers at another facility they manage.

This past July, they stepped away from bargaining again, but this time, it was mediated bargaining. The only reason negotiations continued was because the union initiated it. The two parties met on the 2nd and 3rd of this month and finally reached a tentative agreement.

Heading into negotiations, Chantelle Management had proposed wage freezes in the first year for LPNs and the first two years for everyone else.

They also proposed “me too” increases in the second year for LPNs and the final year for everyone else. This means that the workers would receive what others in the same position working for Alberta Health Services would get in their new contracts.

For LPNs, the employer never made an offer for third year wages in the initial proposal.

Here’s how the raises ended up looking like in the tentative agreement.

2020	0%
2021	1%
2022	1%
2023	2%

That’s a cumulative combined increase of 4.05% over the life of the contract, or an average of a little more than 1% a year.

In addition, if workers ratify the tentative agreement, they will get a lump sum payment of 1% for all hours worked in 2021. Or rather, the general support workers will. It doesn’t appear as though the nursing staff will be eligible for the pandemic premium.

LPNs and HCAs. however, will receive a 1.5% ºmarket adjustment”, but it’ll be effective as of ratification, not retroactive to 3 years ago, when their contract expired.

And while the 1% for GSS workers is better than nothing, lump sum payments don’t boost the floor that raises are based on.

For example, say you were a cook at Edith Cavell and you made $40,000 in 2021. Your lump sum payment would be an extra $400. However, your raise in 2022 would be based on $40,000, not $40,400.

Oh, and there’s something else regarding these wage increases, which the union calls “modest”. They come on the heels of two years of wage freezes in their previous agreement.

Take a look at this though.

In December 2016, the consumer price index in Alberta was 134.9. Six years later, in December 2022, it had increased to 160.8, a jump of 25.9, or 19.2%. In other words, inflation was 19.2% while wages will have increased by only 2% during that time, assuming the workers ratify this tentative agreement.

This means that these workers will see a reduction in real wages, which is basically wages adjusted for inflation. When you receive a 2% wage increase but inflation was 19.2%, that means you actually end up with cut to real wages of 17.2%.

And that 2% they’re scheduled to get this December won’t be nearly enough to make up for that reduction in real wages, especially considering that inflation has already increased 2.7% between December 2022 and October 2023.

The new 4-year contract also includes an unspecified increase to shift premiums, a small increase to severance pay for some workers with seniority, and the extension of life insurance coverage from age 65 to 70. The negotiating team also managed to negotiate a new paid holiday for National Truth and Reconciliation Day.

Workers will participate in a ratification vote tomorrow (24 November). They should receive information on the time and location from the bargaining team.

Because this new contract, despite being 4 years long, will expire a year from now, the bargaining team won’t get much of a break before they have to start negotiations on the next contract.

Especially if it’s going to take 3 years again.