Earlier month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the April 2025 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In April, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 20 private sector and 19 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 990 and 43,727 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for about a dozen workers employed by the Town of Picture Butte. They include clerks, administrative assistants, water and wastewater operators, equipment operators, and paramedics.
The workers are represented by Local 2800 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Their previous contract actually expired in December 2023. Their new contract, however, wasn’t ratified until this past December, effectively a year later, but Mediation Services only recently received a copy.
This contract runs from the beginning of 2024 until the end of 2027, so it’s basically for 4 years. That’s longer than their last contract, which was for 3 years.
This new collective agreement includes wage increases in every one of those 4 years.
| 1 January 2024 | $1.25 |
| 1 January 2025 | 2.75% |
| 1 January 2026 | 2.75% |
| 1 January 2027 | 4.00% |
The $1.25 increase is across the board, so the percentage of that first increase varies depending on the worker’s wage at the end of the previous contract. It ranges from 4.99% for administrative assistants and public works level 1 workers, who were the lowest paid, to 3.73% for public works forepersons, who were paid the most.
That’s a combined increase of 9.5 over the last 3 years but between 13.28% and 14.54% when we factor in the first year increase. This works out to an average of between 3.32% and 3.64% per year.
On top of that, municipal clers, administrative assistants, paramedics, and emergency medical responders were supposed to receive a market adjustment of $1 an hour this past January. Any lead paramedics were also supposed to receive a market adjustment at the same time, but of $3 an hour.
This is way better than what these workers got in their last contract.
| 1 January 2020 | 2.25% |
| 1 July 2021 | 1.00% |
| 1 January 2022 | 1.00% |
| 1 January 2023 | 0.00% |
Meanwhile, inflation increased by 14.23% during the same period, so these workers ended up with a cut to real wages of roughly 10% heading into negotiations for their latest contract.
The raises coming in the new collective agreement are barely enough to cover a 10% loss in wages, but that’s spread out over 4 years, and inflation will increase over those 4 years, too.
Ultimately, this new wage increase—even with the so-called market adjustments for some of the workers—will still see these workers struggling to keep up with the increased cost of living.
Here are some highlights of other things that have changed in this new contract.
In the previous contract, workers had 5 working days to file a grievance. That has been increased to 7 working days.
The hours of work for full-time and part-time workers that were listed in the previous collective agreement are now specifically for full-time and part-time operational workers.
The employer now must provide 5 days notice to workers if they change their scheduled work hours. It used to be 2 weeks. If it’s less than 5 days, workers will get 1.5 times their regular pay rate for all hours worked in the first shift of the changed schedule.
In the previous contract, part-time workers were guaranteed 12 hours of rest between shifts. The new contract allows for less than that (but no less than 8 hours), as long as it’s mutually agreed to.
There was a new section added to the hours of work article, which outlines hours of work for emergency services workers, introducing 3 new shift categories:
- Regular shifts will be 7–12 hours per day, for a total of 35–44 hours per week
- Core-flex shift: 24-hour period during which an employee is assigned to work or required to be on call or standby.
- Each core-flex shift will have at least 3 core hours, followed by up to 9 flex hours and 12 standby hours.
- Rover shifts will be ad hoc based on a special need, circumstance, or project, and will be mutually agreed upon between the employer and worker.
Workers who have to be on duty for their entire shift will be paid for their half-hour meal period. Normally, it would be an unpaid break.
The standby premium is now available to just operational workers. Emergency services workers will now be regularly assigned to standby duty as part of their regular shift rotation.
Under the previous contract, vacation days were based on years of service, but they’ll also now be prorated based on actual hours worked.
The health and wellness account is changing from $200 per worker to $300.
Part-time employees working at least 14 hours per week can now opt into the employer’s pension plan.
