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 private sector agreements was for workers employed by Two Crossings Maintenance Services.
Based in Fort McMurray, specializes in civil contracting and industrial site services, especially bitumen mining operations and development, as well as municipal contracting.
Those 3 dozen or so workers are members of Local 955 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Two Crossings uses them for service and maintenance work, such as maintenance of roads, streets, parking lots, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, and drainage ditches and servicing, repairing, and maintaining sewer, water, and drainage lines.
Their previous collective agreement expired in April 2026. This new agreement was ratified this past July, about 3 months after the old one expired.
The workers will received a 6% wage increase over the course of the new 3-year contract, which expires in April 2029.
| 1 May 2026* | 2.00% |
| 1 May 2027 | 2.00% |
| 1 May 2028 | 2.00% |
| 6.00% |
It actually works out to around 6.12% if you account for compound increases.
They received only wage freezes in their last collective agreement, which was for 2 years, so this is better than that.
And the agreement before that had 2 years (out of 5) of no increases.
In fact, there was a 13.15% wage between 2018 and 2019.
Let us lay out wage increases over the last decade for these workers.
| 1 May 2015 | 2.00% |
| 1 May 2016 | 2.00% |
| 1 May 2017 | 2.00% |
| 1 May 2018 | 2.00% |
| 6 June 2019 | -13.15% |
| 1 May 2020 | 0.00% |
| 1 May 2021 | 1.50% |
| 1 May 2022 | 1.50% |
| 1 May 2023 | 1.50% |
| 1 May 2024 | 0.00% |
| 1 May 2025 | 0.00% |
That works out to a combined decrease of 0.65% between May 2015 and May 2025, or a 1.7% decrease if we account for compounding increases and decreases.
It get worse though.
Between May 2014 (the last raise before the above decade) and May 2025 (the last time they should have received a raise before the new contract), the consumer price index in Alberta increased 39.1 points, from 132.8 points to 171.9 points.
That is a 29.44% increase.
So, these workers got a 1.7% wage reduction during a time of nearly 30% inflation. They had a loss in real wages of 31.14% heading into negotiations for their new contract.
That means that this new 6.12% raise is actually a 25.02% wage reduction.
Keep in mind that the new contract is over 3 years, so there will be an additional 3 years of inflation on top of that.
Inflation since May 2025 has already passed 4.25%. This contract has not even finished its first year, and these workers already are almost back to a real wage loss of 30% since 2015.
Two Crossings should have offered at least 31% in the first year, just to get caught up to 3 years of wage freezes and that 13% wage reduction.
Here are some other changes over the previous agreement.
The employer’s contributions to the Health and Wellness fund have increased from $1.69 per worker per hour to $1.85. This will increase further to $2.05 in May 2028.
Training rate will increase from 8¢ per hour to 9¢ per hour next May and 10¢ per hour in May 2028.
Shift premium for all hours worked between 16:00 and 05:00 the following morning has increased from $1.20 per hour to $1.50 per hour.
The following clause was added to the agreement
17:06 Post Training
Any online training will be done on company time, if training is to be done after hours only current employees will be compensated at their hourly rate at straight time rates, base on the time allotted for the course, to a maximum of 3 hours.If employees are required to pay for their own course they will be reimbursed for the cost of that course with proof of receipt, only if they are a current employee.
There is also a new clause allowing for the possibility of a local living out allowance, but it will still be at the whim of the employer.
