Earlier this month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, Trade, and Immigration published their December 2025 Bargaining Update.
The monthly report provides information about Alberta’s unionized workforce, primarily collective agreement settlement information the department received in December 2025.
Last month, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 40 bargaining relationships encompassing 21,601 employees. Of those relationships, 17 were in the private sector and 23 were in the public sector, covering 2,128 and 19,473 employees respectively.
One of those collective agreements was for about 20 workers employed by the BC-based Chantelle Management.
These workers are employed at the Edith Cavell Care Centre, a 120-bed residential care facility in Lethbridge, where they provide continuing care services under contract with Alberta Health Services.
They are members of United Nurses of Alberta and include registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, graduate nurses, and undergraduate nurses.
Even though Mediation Services published an update on this agreement earlier this month, it was actually ratified in November 2024.
Their last collective agreement, however, expired in March 2020, so it took more than 4.5 years before Chantelle Management finally agreed to the new agreement.
Part of the reason for this delay is that the employer was still dragging their heels on their last agreement, which itself was not ratified until April 2022, more than 2 years after their previous collective agreement had expired.
The new agreement brings 4 wage increases, although 2 of them are in the same year.
| 1 July 2020 | 0.00% |
| 1 October 2021 | 1.00% |
| 31 May 2022 | 2.00% |
| 1 September 2022 | 1.25% |
| 1 April 2023 | 2.00% |
That is a combined 6.25%, or an annual average increase of 1.56%.
Keep in mind that these workers got only wage freezes in their last contract. In fact, their last raise, prior to this new contract, was back in July 2016.
Between July 2016 and April 2023, the consumer price index in Alberta increased 28.1 points, from 135.6 to 163.7. That is a 20.72% jump.
Because inflation grew by nearly 21% over this 7-year period, but wages increased by just 6.25%, these workers have been left with a cut to real wages of roughly 14.5%.
Let us say that back in July 2016, these workers spent $100 on a set of goods and services. Those same goods and services would now cost them $114.50, or at least they would in April 2023, even when we account for the wage increases.
Or to put it another way, If they spent only $100 on those goods and services in April 2023, they would be able to afford the equivalent of $85.50 worth of those goods.
Remember, that is not counting inflation in 2024 or 2025, so it is even worse of these workers right now than it was back in 2023.
Outside of wages, I could not find any other significant changes between the new agreement and the one before it.
This March will mark two years since the new contract expired, even though it was not ratified until the following November. That means that if they are negotiating on a new 4-year agreement, it is almost halfway over.
Hopefully, Chantelle Management gets their act together to show respect for their workers by finishing negotiations before the next contract expires and by offering a wage increase of at least 14.5% in the first year just to make up for wages lost to inflation and 5 years of wage freezes.
