Last month, Alberta Jobs, Economy & Trade updated their collective bargaining agreement database with new collective agreements that were settled in March.
One of those agreements was between transit workers and the City of Red Deer.
These 130 or so workers have been without a new contract for over a year, ever since their previous contract expired at the end of 2022.
The data Alberta Jobs, Economy & Trade included in their update is pretty sparse. It pretty much includes only information on wage increases, so I won’t be able to highlight changes to such things as benefits or working conditions.
The union filed for mediation back in May, after the City of Red Deer refused to make concessions on wages, offering increases less that inflation.
The workers’ bargaining team and representatives from the City of Red Deer met only once with the mediator. After talks broke down last September, the mediator called for a 14-day cooling off period.
During that time, Local 569 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents these workers, held a strike vote, and 99% of the workers who participated voted in favour of striking.
Local 569 then used that vote result as leverage to convince the City of Red Deer to go into arbitration. This new contract is a result of both negotiations and arbitration.
The new 3-year contract includes 3 years of the following wage increases.
| 1 Jan 2023 | 3.5% |
| 1 Jan 2024 | 3.0% |
| 1 Jan 2025 | 2.5% |
That’s a combined increase of 9.0%, or 9.27% if you account for compound increases.
And while a 9.27% might seem significant, keep in mind that this comes after two years of wage freezes in their previous contract.
In January 2020, the last time these workers received a wage increases, the consumer price index in Alberta was 144.7, By January 2023, that had increased to 160.9. That’s a 11.20% jump.
That means these workers were coming into these negotiations with a decline in real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) of 11.20%.
In other words, for every $100 they made in January 2020, it was worth only $88.80 just 3 years later. To put it another way, the good and services they purchased for $100 in January 2020 cost them $111.20 by January 2023.
And remember, that’s without any wage increases.
The 9.27% increase these workers will receive over the life of this entire contract won’t be enough to make up for the loss in wages during the two-year wage freeze.
And that’s not even including the inflation that’ll occur during this new contract.
For example, while the City of Red Deer continued to drag their feet on negotiating a fair contract for these workers in 2023, inflation rose another 3.36% between January 2023 and January 2024.
So, not only is the 9.27% wage increase not enough to catch these workers up from their loss in real wages during their previous contract, the increases in inflation last year, this year, and next year will mean these workers will get even further behind in being able to support themselves and their households.
This new contract includes transit and paratransit drivers, dispatchers, and service bay workers.
