Last week, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the May 2025 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In May, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 27 private sector and 22 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 19,771 and 17,459 workers respectively.
Among those settlements were 2 contracts for about 680 workers employed by Bee-Clean.
With head offices in Edmonton and Winnipeg, Bee Clean sells the cleaning services of its workers to commercial clients throughout the country.
The first contract covers 650 workers employed by Bee-Clean in the Wood Buffalo Region’s heavy industrial sector except those working at the Firebag and Taiganova sites. The second contract covers the 30 workers employed by Bee-Clean at the Suncor Fireaug site.
Local 92 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, also known as LiUNA, represents the former group of workers, while the second group belongs to Local 2 of the Service Employees International Union, otherwise known as SEIU.
Their previous contracts for both groups of workers (here and here) expired in November 2024. Their new contracts were ratified in November 2024 for the first group and January 2025 for the second group .
Both contracts will run from November 2024 to May 2027, about 2.5 years.
The workers are set to receive two wage increases during these contracts.
| 1 March 2025 | 1.50% |
| 1 March 2026 | 1.50% |
In comparison, inflation between March 2024 and March 2025 was 2.8%. This is barely enough to cover inflation for just 1 year, let alone 2. These are insufficient wage increases.
And that’s not even accounting for below-inflation raises in the previous contracts.
Here are some highlights of other things that have changed in this new contract.
Let’s start with the LiUNA workers.
National Day for Truth & Reconciliation was added to the list of recognized holidays, which are used to determine stat holiday pay. However, it comes with 2 conditions:
- Bee-Clean’ client(s) associated with the worksite must explicitly agree to fund it as a paid holiday.
- The Province of Alberta must designate it as a statutory holiday under the Employment Standards Code.
Any worker qualifying for 5 weeks of vacation is also eligible to take an additional week of vacation, but it would be unpaid.
The annual boot allowance will increase from $140 to $150 this year and then increases again next year to $160.
Bee-Clean has agreed to increase their contribution to the Local 92 training fund. At the end of the last collective agreement, they were paying 12¢ an hour for every hour worked by each LiUNA member in the bargaining unit. They are increasing it to 15¢ an hour, effective March 2024.
Now for the SEIU workers.
Anyone who has been employed with the company for at least 15 years shall be entitled to take 1 week of unpaid leave, in addition to their vacation time. This was not present in the old contract.
The annual boot allowance will increase from $140 to $150 this year and then increases again next year to $160.
