Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the January 2025 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In January, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 28 private sector and 11 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 4,351 and 944 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for about 50 workers employed by Pieridae Energy at their Waterton Complex near Pincher Creek.
Based out of Calgary, Pieridae Energy focuses on natural gas production in an area covering over 1 million gross acres in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. They purchased much of that land and the extraction infrastructure from Shell Canada Energy in 2019.
The workers in this collective agreement are all operating and maintenance workers, including field operators, plant operators, utility workers, maintenance workers, planning and scheduling workers, and those working in safety. They’re represented by Local 835 of Unifor.
The previous contract for these workers, which was signed while they were still employed with Shell, expired in March 2023. The new contract was settled in April 2024, over a year later; although Mediation Services only recently received their copy.
The new collective agreement is for just 2 years expiring in March 2026. This is shorter than their last agreement, which was for 4 years. As well, with their previous contract ending in March 2023 and this new contract beginning in April 2024, these workers have over a year not covered by a contract.
The workers are set to receive wage increases in every year of their new contract.
| 18 April 2024 | 7.00% |
| 1 April 2025 | 5.00% |
This combined increase works out to 12%, which is an annual average increase of 6%. Remember, however, that with having no contract in 2023, these workers received a wage freeze that year, bringing the annual increase to 4%, on average.
However, the annual average increase in their last collective agreement was just shy of 3%, so this is definitely an improvement on wages.
Workers are also scheduled to get a $5,000 signing bonus next month, provided they were employed at the time of ratification and they were actively at work for at least 9 months between last April and this month. Anyone working at least 200 hours during that same period and were employed at ratification will receive an extra $1000 next month.
Here are some changes between the new collective agreement and their previous one.
National Truth and Reconciliation Day was added to the list of recognized holidays, bringing the total to 12 holidays used to determine stat holiday pay.
Overtime pay is normally paid to workers when they have to change from a regular shift to a new shift. The new collective agreement adds the following exception to this:
during the period from January 1 to January 31 in each calendar year and, with respect to new employee’s at any time during such new employee’s probation period
For grievances, arbitration has changed from a 3-person board to a single arbitrator.
Under the previous collective agreement, any layoffs were to be done according to seniority. In the new collective agreement, layoffs will “consider skill, ability, experience, and qualifications”. Seniority will only come into play if all of those factors are equal.
The shift bonus for number 2 operators was scheduled to increase from $54.97 to $58.82 last year and again to $61.76 next month.
Boot allowance has been maxed at $300 per year. There was no maximum in the previous agreement. The allowance can be rolled over into the following year, but the rollover caps out at $600.
Meal allowance has been increased from $12 per meal to $15 per meal, and the maximum for a 16-hour work period has been change from 4 meals to $45.
