Earlier this month, Alberta Mediation Services published their bargaining update for August 2026, which covers all the collective agreement settlement information received by Mediation Services in last month.
This information included 31 bargaining relationships encompassing 3,645 workers. Of those, 16 were private sector and 15 were public sector, with 2,130 and 1,515 workers respectively.
One of the public sector agreements was for workers employed by Northern Lights School Division.
These 20 or so workers are members of Local 2559 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Based out of Bonnyville, this school division oversees nearly 30 elementary, middle, and high schools in Ardmore, Bonnyville, Caslan, Cold Lake, Glendon, Iron River, Kikino, Lac La Biche, Pamodon, and Wandering River.
The workers in the agreement are all employed by Northern Lights as custodians at their various schools.
Their previous collective agreement expired in August 2021. This new agreement was ratified just last month, roughly 5 years later. It took effect September 2021. Mediation Services has yet to publish the new contract.
What they have released, however, are the scheduled wage increases.
| 1 September 2021 | 0.00% |
| 1 September 2022 | 0.00% |
| 1 September 2023 | 1.25% |
| 1 February 2024 | 1.50% |
| 1 September 2024 | 3.00% or $1.25* |
| 1 September 2025 | 3.00% |
| 1 September 2026 | 3.00% or $1.25* |
| 1 September 2027 | 3.00% |
As you can see, the contract starts out with 2 years of wage freezes, so these workers will get no retroactive raises for any work done in 2021 or 2022.
Keep in mind that they had no wage increases in the previous two contracts either. In fact, prior to this new contract, their last wage increases was back in 2016.
| 1 September 2017 | 0.00% |
| 1 September 2018 | 0.00% |
| 1 September 2019 | 0.00% |
| 1 September 2020 | 0.00% |
Between September 2016 (their last raise) and September 2023 (the first raise in their new contract, the consumer price index in Alberta increased from 135.3 points to 166.0 points, a jump of 30.7 points, or 22.69%.
So, while these workers were getting 7 years of wage freezes, inflation crept past 22.5%.
How on earth does the school division—or the provincial government, who provides funding for the school division—think that an initial wage increase of just 1.25% would make up for a loss in real wages of over 22.55%?
Now, you might be thinking, “But, Kim, they are getting more than 1.25% in their new contract. From what I can tell, they will get a minimum of 14.75% over the course of the new contract”.
And you would be right.
However, it is extremely unlikely that inflation will not increase during this contract, and the new inflation will eat up most—if not all—of that additional 13.50%.
For example, inflation since September 2023 has already increased an additional 8.31%, which is less than the 4.5% they were scheduled to get in 2024, the 3% they got last September, and the 3% they got this month combined.
That leaves just 2.19% to go toward the real wage gap. But at least that gap is under 20% now.
To be clear, a 14.75% wage increase is better than more wage freezes, but these workers should be getting close to 40% in this contract to make up for lost wages from the previous 2 contracts and to cover inflation during this new contract.
Even if they get $1.25 an hour in September 2024 and September 2026 (which they did), it still is not enough to make up for their loss in real wages.
I reached out to the bargaining committee for these custodians, and they said that wages were the top priority in these negotiations, so there were no other substantial changes in the new collective agreement over the previous agreement.
