Last month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published their April 2024 Bargaining Update, which includes details on recently settled collective agreements.
One of the agreements was between Local 4794 of the International Association of Fire Fighters and Rocky View County.
Local 4794 of IAFF represents about 140 firefighters employed by the county.
Their previous contract expired at the end of 2020, and this new contract—even though it was settled at the end of April—actually already expired: at the end of 2023.
Mediation Services didn’t provide a copy of the full contract, so I wasn’t able to compare comprehensive changes between the two contracts. They did, however, provide information on wage increases.
According to what was included, these firefighters are set to receive a combined 8.5% wage increase for the period spanning 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2023.
| 1 January 2021 | 2.00% |
| 1 January 2022 | 3.00% |
| 1 January 2023 | 3.50% |
If you account for compound increases, the raise will end up being a combined 8.74% actually.
That’s more than their previous contract, which saw a 2% increase in each of the three years of the contract.
In January 2017, the last time these workers received a wage increase prior to this previous contract, the consumer price index in Alberta sat at 137.0. This past January, however, it had climbed to 165.9, an increase of 28.9 points, or 21.09%.
So, over a 6-year period—this contract and the previous contract—these firefighters have received a wage increase of 15.39%. Yet, during the same time, inflation reached 21.09%.
This means that the workers have actually received a reduction in real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 5.7% since 2018. This employer has refused to offer their workers sufficient wages to allow them to keep up with the increase to the cost of living.
Keep in mind that negotiations between these firefighters and Rocky View County went to mediation in November 2021. This is all they got after over 2 years of mediation.
