While browsing through the collective bargaining agreement database on the Government of Alberta website, I noticed a new contract for workers at St. Micheal’s Health Centre in Lethbridge.
St. Michael’s Health Centre is a 202-bed continuing care centre in South Lethbridge, near the Chinook Regional Hospital.
These workers are employed in general support services, rather than directly in providing health care. They include food workers, programme support, therapeutic support, laundry workers, maintenance workers, and so on.
These 130 or so workers are represented by Local 408 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and their previous contract had expired over 4 years ago, in March 2020.
Yes, you read that right: these workers have been working off an expired contract since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And what did they get in this contract? Well, Mediation Services hasn’t received the entire contract yet, so I can’t provide a comprehensive comparison between the two contracts. However, they did include pay increases.
| 1 April 2020 | 0.00% |
| 1 April 2021 | 0.00% |
| 1 April 2022 | 1.25% |
| 1 April 2023 | 2.00% |
And this is the result of 6 months of mediation, so we know that Covenant Health, the operator of St. Mike’s, came in at less than that for their initial offer.
That’s not even the worst part. Check out the raises these workers have received over the last 10 years, including these 4 new increases.
| 2014 | 2.00% |
| 2015 | 2.00% |
| 2016 | 1.00% |
| 2017 | 0.00% |
| 2018 | 0.00% |
| 2019 | 1.00% |
| 2020 | 0.00% |
| 2021 | 0.00% |
| 2022 | 1.25% |
| 2023 | 2.00% |
Over the last decade, these workers will have received a combined wage increase of 9.25%, or 9.61% if you account for compounding increases. That comes to less than 1% per year, on average.
Meanwhile, between April 2013 and April 2023, the consumer price index in Alberta increased from 128.7 to 163.7. That’s a jump of 35 points, or 27.19%.
Inflation increased during the same period at nearly triple the rate as wage increases. That means these workers have ended up with a cut to real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 17.58%. And that’s including the new 3.25% increase!
Inflation during 2022 alone was 5.99% in Alberta. This new increase wasn’t enough to cover inflation that Alberta hadn’t seen in 40 years, let alone make up for lost wages from 4 years of wage freezes and several years of below-inflation raises.
Plus, get this. Because Covenant Health dragged their feet for over 4 years on helping their workers deal with a massive increase to the cost of living, their 4-year contract is already expired.
The collective agreement, which they settled less than a month ago, has an expiry date of March 2024.
The bargaining team will have hardly enough time off before having to negotiate a new contract.
This is the first time since at least 2005 that a collective agreement between these workers and Covenant Health wasn’t settled before the expiry date.
Hopefully, Covenant Health treats their workers more respectfully in the next round of bargaining.
2 replies on “Lethbridge care workers get 3.5% raise”
How is it possible that Air Canada get a 42% raise and these hard working worker don’t get enough to cover what they have lost. We really do abuse our healthcare workers.
Because the provincial government is controlling how much pubic sector employers can offer their employees.