Last week, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the July 2024 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. Last month, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 26 private sector and 10 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,032 and 6,698 workers respectively.
Four of those settlements were for educational workers employed in the Black Gold School Division, the Calgary Board of Education, the Holy Spirit Roman Catholic School Division, and the Red Deer School Division.
These workers are also represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Based out of Nisku, the Black Gold School Division oversees the administration of schools in several bedroom communities of Edmonton, including Beaumont, Calmar, Devon, Leduc, New Sarepta, Thorsby, and Warburg. This new settlement applies to 553 members of Local 3484 of CUPE, which includes secretaries, education assistants, education technicians, library workers, and therapy assistants.
The Calgary Board of Education settlement is with Local 40 of CUPE but only covers those working in facility and environmental services, which is 818 workers.
The Lethbridge-based Holy Spirit division settlement is also with custodial workers, but only 46, and they are represented by Local 290 of CUPE.
Finally, the Red Deer School Division settlement is with about 90 custodial and maintenance workers, represented by Local 1012 of CUPE.
Calgary’s new collective agreement was settled in February. Both Lethbridge and Red Deer workers had a new contract as of April. Black Gold workers got their new contract just last month.
Even so, all four of those contracts expire at the end of this month. The employers dragged their feet so long, that by the time the two parties finally settled on a contract, it was almost time to start negotiations on the next contract.
You see, the Calgary workers hadn’t had a new contract in about 3.5 years, since their previous one expired in August 2020. Red Deer workers saw their previous contract expire a year later, in August 2021, as did workers in Black Gold and Lethbridge.
That means that all four groups of workers have been waiting for over two years for a new contract.
One of the handy things for employers when the draw out negotiations is that it becomes easier to justify wage freezes. After all, if the time has already passed and the workers got along fine without raises, then we can just start raises from this point, and keep the status quo for previous years.
Take a look at the wage increases in the new contracts:
| 1st year | 2nd year | 3rd year | 4th year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Gold | 0.00% | 0.00% | 2.75% | — |
| Calgary | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 2.75% |
| Holy Spirit | 0.00% | 0.00% | 2.75% | — |
| Red Deer | 0.00% | 0.00% | 2.75% | — |
See? Every one of these employers held back wages for each year of the contract except for the final year.
Too bad the workers haven’t been able to hold back price increases on groceries and housing over the last three years. These sucky wage increases wouldn’t suck so much then.
And with all four contracts expiring at the end of this month, these bargaining teams for these workers will get hardly enough rest before beginning on the new round of negotiations, assuming they haven’t already began.
