No new contract since 2022 for 1000 Lethbridge workers

Earlier this month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the August 2024 Bargaining Update.

This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In August, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 28 private sector and 9 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,361 and 1,857 workers respectively.

Missing from those settlements, however, were the ones for workers employed by the City of Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Public Library.

The 860 municipal workers and 94 library workers have been waiting since December 2022 for a new collective agreement. That’s when their previous agreements expired.

That means that these nearly 1,000 workers have had their wages frozen since January 2022, the last time they got a raise, which was before inflation skyrocketed the following summer.

A new agreement could include retroactive wages once ratified, but it doesn’t help the workers right now.

Speaking of wages, here are the increases they received in their previous agreements:

1 January 2019	1.00%
1 January 2020	1.50%
1 January 2021	1.50%
1 January 2022	2.00%

That’s a combined increase of 6%, or 6.13% if you include cumulative increases. This works out to 1.5% (1.53%) per year, on average.

During that same period, the consumer price index in Alberta increased from 138.9 in January 2018 to 152.8, a jump of 13.9 points, or 10.01%.

And since inflation was 10.01% during the same period that these workers received a wage increase of just 6% (6.13%), it means these workers have had a cut to real wages—wages adjusted for inflation— 4.01% (3.88%).

And remember, that’s not including all the inflation in 2022 and 2023. Inflation between January 2018 and January 2024 actually increased 19.44%, which is nearly double what it was when we cut it off at January 2022.

This gives the workers a real wage cut of 13.44% (13.31%) as of January 2024. If they don’t receive at least 13.5% in the first two years of their new contract, whenever it’s ratified, they will be behind inflation once again.

That’s only the first two years of the contract. Assuming it’s a four-year contract, there will be this year’s and next year’s inflation to account for in negotiating wages. And it’s already up to 2.59% for the first 8 months of 2024.

Because both the City of Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Public Library Board have refused to meet all the demands the workers have put on the table, bargaining had reached a standstill, moving on to mediation this past July.

Hopefully, the mediator will side in favour of the workers, so they’ll be able to afford the rising cost of living as they try supporting themselves and their families, but I’m not holding my breath.

After all, this past August, they awarded two years of wage freezes to non-profit workers in Red Deer, as well as a paltry 3% increase for the entire 3-year contract.

In June, education workers in the Horizon School Division got 3 years of wage freezes in a contract that expired just two months after it was ratified. That same month, education workers in Red Deer got 2 years of wage freezes from the mediator.

And in April, a mediator gave wage freezes to Calgary long-term workers.

Update (30 Sep 2024): A representative from Local 70 provided more context for mediation. Even though the matter had been sent to mediation, as I reported above, that meditation was set to begin at the end of last month; however, the lead negotiator for the City of Lethbridge left before then. As well, negotiations resumed last week (after I had written my story) for library workers, and they will resume with the broader municipal workers during the second week of October. Mediation may not even be necessary after all.