Yesterday, the Lethbridge School Division updated their website regarding contract negotiations with education support workers. They also sent the same update via email.
The school division oversees the operation of all the public schools in Lethbridge.
These roughly 500 workers are represented by Local 290 and Local 2843 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. They’ve been without a new contract since their last ones (here and here) expired last August, just months after they were ratified.
Local 290 represents just under 100 custodial workers employed by the school division throughout Lethbridge.
Local 2843 represents such positions as administrative assistants, educational assistants, library workers, advanced educational support workers, and business support workers.
The workers and the school division had gone to mediation earlier this month after negotiations broke down following the school division refusing to budge on the original offer forced upon them by the Provincial Bargaining and Compensation Office.
The two parties met with the mediator earlier this month. But again, they school division refused to offer more than the secret mandate, so the workers asked the mediator to “book out”.
According to the update, the mediator honoured the book out request, triggering a 14-day cooling period. After the two weeks are up, the workers could hold a strike vote and the school division could hold a lockout poll.
In an email to The Alberta Worker, Joanne Lavkulich, the president of CUPE Local 1825 and chair of the Alberta Education Employees Committee, said that all 5 CUPE locals in Lethbridge had been in mediation, and the mediator booked out on all of them yesterday.
If you want to know why these education workers want more than what the provincial government is forcing school boards to offer them, check out their wage increases since 2011.
| 2012 | 0.00% |
| 2013 | 0.00% |
| 2014 | 0.00% |
| 2015 | 2.00% |
| 2016 | 2.00% |
| 2017 | 0.00% |
| 2018 | 0.00% |
| 2019 | 0.00% |
| 2020 | 0.00% |
| 2021 | 0.00% |
| 2022 | 0.00% |
| 2023 | 1.25% |
| 2024 | 1.50% |
Prior to their last contract being ratified less than a year ago, these workers hadn’t received a wage increase since 2016. And that increase (with a similar one the year before) came after 3 additional years of wage freezes.
These workers got 9 years of wage freezes over a 13-year period. That measly 2.75% they got in their last contract came on the heels of the highest inflation we’d seen in 40 years.
Speaking of inflation, in September 2011, the last time the workers got a raise prior to the onslaught of consecutive freezes, the consumer price index in Alberta sat at 126.0.
By September 2023, it has jumped to 166.0, and increase of 40, or 31.75%.
Because inflation was 31.75% during this 12-year period, the 5.25% combined wage increase they received during the same timeframe means they end up with a cut to real wages of 26.5%!
That 1.5% raise they got in February 2024 certainly wasn’t enough to cover that shortfall. Heck, it wasn’t even enough to cover the 2% inflation between September 2023 and September 2024.
Other school boards have been offering education support workers 10% over 4 years. The Lethbridge School Division hasn’t made public what their offer was, but the province likely forced the same offer on them that they’re forcing on other school divisions.
Now, a 10% raise would certainly help make up some of that 27% shortfall, when we factor in last year’s raise and inflation, but they’d still be 17% behind inflation.
And remember, that 10% would be over 4 years. Inflation will increase during that period, which will eat up those raises, putting these workers lower than 17% by the time the contract would’ve expired in 2028.
No wonder these workers pulled out of mediation.
These workers need a 27% wage increase in just their first year, followed by 2% in each of the following years. Hopefully, the school division will communicate that need to the provincial government.
While the workers have yet to communicate with the school district their intent to strike, the school district is anticipating such an action.
Mike Nightingale, the divisions superintendent, promised, “although there will be disruption to operations, we will make every effort to maintain programming with the staff and resources we have available”.
Hopefully that means no scab labour.
It’ll be interesting to see how things play out over the next few weeks.
2 replies on “Lethbridge education workers pull out of mediation”
The value placed on the labour of those who care for our children should be reflected in proper remuneration. I wonder how the income of those on the other side of the table has changed in that same time.
[…] be interesting to see how this plays out for Lethbridge education support workers who recently pulled out of mediation and are currently in the mandatory 14-day cooling off period that must precede a strike […]