Road maintenance workers ask for 26% raise

Earlier this month, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on their website regarding negotiations for road maintenance workers.

The 500 or so workers are employed with Emcon Services, and their current contract expires at the end of the month.

Emcon is the largest road maintenance contractor in Canada, and they are responsible for maintaining 40% of Alberta’s highway network, which includes about 12,000 lane kilometres of highways Athabasca, Stony Plain, Fort McMurray, Vermillion, and Hanna districts.

The workers are asking for a 26% raise over a 3-year period in their new contract.

1 November 2024	13.0%
1 November 2025	6.5%
1 November 2026	6.5%

They got 5.35% in their latest contract:

According to the December 2022 Bargaining Update from the Mediation Services of the Government of Alberta, the current contract was settled in July 2022, despite the fact that the previous one expired in October 2019, nearly 3 years prior.

In that update, Mediation Services reported the following increases:

1 November 2019	0.00%
1 November 2020	1.50%
1 November 2021	0.50%
1 November 2022	3.35%
1 November 2023	TBD

That TBD was an increase based on a price adjustment factor set by Alberta Transportation.

Here are some more highlights from the proposals the workers have put forward in the initial rounds of bargaining.

The workers would like to consolidate all shift premiums into one, covering hours worked between 21:00 and 07:00 the following morning. They also want to set the shift premium to $2 an hour for hours worked during that period, as well as raising the reporting pay from 3 hours of pay to 4 hours of pay.

Their negotiating committee has proposed increasing overtime pay from 1.5 times the regular rate of pay to double the rate of pay, and they want to go from double pay to 2.5 times pay for hours worked on Christmas and New Year’s Day. They also want to lower the threshold for when overtime kicks in from 10 hours to 8 hours, and they are trying to introduce a meal allowance for anyone working over 3 hours of overtime.

Also proposed by the workers is two new paid holidays: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and a floater day that the workers can use at their discretion. They have asked for holiday pay for those work those day be increased from 1.5 times the normal rate of pay to double time, except for Christmas and New Year’s, which they’re hoping to get 2.5 times pay on.

Under the current contract, regular employees who have been with the company for less than 10 years will accrue vacation times at 1.25 days per month. Those above the 10-year threshold will accrue 1.67 days per month. The workers want to reduce this threshold to 5 years. They also want to add two more thresholds.

Here are the proposed changes in an easier-to-read format:

	Current	Proposed
< 5 years	1.25 days / month	1.25 days / month
5–10 years	1.25 days / month	1.67 days / month
10–15 years	1.67 days / month	2.03 days / month
15+ years	1.67 days / month	2.50 days / month

The workers have proposed adding a new sick leave to the contract. This would give each worker 12 days per year to take time off work for illness.

The previous contract required that workers be employed with the company for at least a year before qualifying for maternity leave. The workers want to reduce this to just 90 days. They also want to boost the leave to 16 weeks from the current 15 weeks. Related to that, they want to lower the eligibility requirement for parental leave from 52 weeks to 90 days, and increase the actual leave length to 62 weeks from 52 weeks.

The workers want to introduces a wage premium of $2 for class 1 drivers; operators of graders, back hoes, or excavators; lead hands; and crew leads.

As far as benefits go, the workers want a benefit plan that allows for direct billing. They want to increase prescription coverage from 80% to 100%. They also hope hope to increase vision care from $300 to $500 every two years for glasses and change the $75 coverage for exam fees every two years to 100% coverage every year. Finally, they want to increase dental coverage from a $1500 annual maximum to a $3000 annual maximum, as well as double lifetime orthodontic coverage to $3000.

Here are proposed changes to the boot allowance:

	Current	Proposed
Regular, temporary, and seasonal	$100	$250
Bridge crew	$200	$500
Spray patch or asphalt/paving crews	$200	$500

The negotiating committee also want to change the tool allowance for trade-qualified mechanics, apprentices, and welders from $199.75 per year to $199.75 per month.

For workers having to travel, the bargaining committee wants to increase the meal allowance from $50 per day to $65 per day. Related to that, they have proposed that any workers who have to stay in a hotel overnight will have their own hotel rooms.

	Current	Proposed
Breakfast	$10	$15
Lunch	$15	$20
Supper	$25	$30

The workers also want a telephone allowance of $50 per month since the employer wants them to have a phone on them.

Finally, the workers want Emcon to increase the employer contribution to their RRSP plans from $1.25 an hour to $2.00 an hour.