Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on their website regarding collective agreement negotiations between Olds College and some of the workers they employ.
As of their last contract, which expired in June 2024, the AUPE represented about 140 non-academic workers at the college, including administrative assistants, building operators, caretakers, analysts, clerks, equipment operators, library workers, technicians, and trades workers.
Despite the most recent collective agreement for these workers expiring nearly a year ago, the two parties didn’t begin bargaining on the next contract until towards the end of last month.
The workers, as part of their initial proposal, asked for a 24% raise over 4 years.
Now, that might seem like a lot, but take a look at their wage increases over the last two collective agreements.
| 1 July 2017 | 0.00% |
| 1 July 2018 | 0.00% |
| 1 July 2019 | 0.00% |
| 1 July 2020 | 0.00% |
| 1 July 2021 | 0.00% |
| 1 July 2022 | 0.00% |
| 1 April 2023 | 1.25% |
| 1 December 2023 | 1.50% |
These workers got 6 years in a row of wage freezes!
Meanwhile, between 1 July 2016—the last time they got a raise prior to the wage freezes—and 1 July 2023, the consumer price index in Alberta increased from 135.6 to 166.0, a jump of 30.4 points.
In other words, inflation increased by 22.42%!
And Olds College decided—with undue pressure from the UCP government, I’m sure, since they were setting 2.75% increases on other public sector employers—that a 2.75% increase would somehow make up for inflation that was almost 10 times that amount.
No wonder the workers are asking for 24%.
Now, keep in mind, that would barely make up for the wage freezes, leaving roughly only 2% to cover inflation in the last year of their previous contract and inflation over the 4 years of a new contract.
The workers also asked for a minimum wage of $22.98 for allow workers, a cost-of-living adjustment, and an increase of $1,500 to their health spending account.
At this point, you might be asking, “So, what did the employer offer?”
Well, get this: they offered 7.5% over 4 years.
These workers had a cut to their real wages of 19.67% over the last two contracts, and Olds College thinks that a measly 7.5% will make up for that. Inflation was more than 2.5 times that much.
That’s pathetic.
But it doesn’t stop there.
The employer wants to reduce acting incumbent pay from 10% down to just 3% and extend by an entire week the period before anyone qualifies for acting incumbent pay, going from 3 days to 10 days.
In addition to giving them more real wage cuts, they want to claw some of that pay back by offloading the cost of health benefits onto the workers. Currently, Olds College covers 100% of the costs, but they want to split it so they pay 75% and the workers pay 25%.
They also want to limit personal leave and salary protection for reclassified workers, reduce educational leave entitlements, and give themselves the ability to raise parking fees whenever they want.
It sounds like these workers might be in for a long bargaining season. And they don’t even have a second session booked yet.
