School board gives maintenance workers wage freezes

Earlier this month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the August 2024 Bargaining Update.

This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. Last month, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 28 private sector and 9 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,361 and 1,857 workers respectively.

Among those settlements was a contract for 7 maintenance workers employed by the Foothills School Division, which is based out of High River.

The school division oversees schools in not only High River but also Blackie, Cayley, Diamond Valley, Longview, Millarville, and Okotoks, as well as schools on several local Hutterite colonies.

The workers are represented by The Foothills School Division Maintenance Association and include workers who have been hired to perform maintenance on schools of within the division, as well as other properties overseen by the school board.

This includes electricians, plumbers, mechanical maintenance technicians, carpenters, structural maintenance technicians, groundskeepers, and general labourers.

Their previous contract expired back in August 2020, but their new contract was settled last November, over 3 years later. Mediation Services only recently received the contract however.

Plus, because the new 4-year contract took so long to negotiate, it’s now expired, having an end date of last month.

Their last contract wasn’t a whole lot better, taking over two years to negotiate, but expiring a year before the contract was even ratified!

At least they were able to negotiate a contract before it expired this time.

According to the bargaining update, these workers received wage freezes in the each of the first three years of the new contract.

1st year	0.00%
2nd year	0.00%
3rd year	0.00%
1 December 2023	3.75%

The wage increase these workers received at the end of last year, as meagre as they are, are the first raises these workers have received in years.

Their previous raise was in 2018, when they got a 1% increase. Prior to that, they got a 3% increase in 2015.

Let’s put the raises from the last tow contracts together.

2013	0.00%
2014	0.00%
2015	3.00%
2016	0.00%
2017	0.00%
2018	1.00%
2019	0.00%
2020	0.00%
2021	0.00%
2022	0.00%
2023	3.75%

That’s a combined 7.75% over 10 years, which works out to just 0.78% per year on average.

In comparison, the consumer price index of Alberta increased from 127.8 in September 2012 to 166.0 in September 2023. That’s a jump of 38.2, or 29.89%.

So, during the decade that these were getting a 7.75% combined wage increase, inflation was increasing by more than triple that amount. That has left these workers with a cut to real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 22.14%.

In other words, every $1000 those workers were paid in September 2012 was the equivalent of $778.60 in today’s dollars, or rather in September 2023 dollars.

To put it another way, goods and services that cost them $1000 in September 2012 cost them $1,221.40 in September 2023. Either that, or they could only afford $778.60 worth of the same goods and services now.

These raises will do very little to help these workers deal with skyrocketing cost of living. It’s better than nothing, but many of them will still struggle to support themselves and their families.

Workers were also eligible for a $1,800 one-time bonus if they were working full-time for the school division as of November 2023. Keep in mind that while bonus payments are better than no bonus payments, they don’t increase your base pay, which is what raises are based on.

If workers were making $2000 month, their next raise would be based on $2000, not $3,800 after the bonus.

Here are some highlights of other changes between the previous contract and the new contract.

Under the previous contract, workers had to take any time off in lieu of overtime pay within a 6-month period. That was changed to within the current school year.

Bereavement leave under the previous contract was 3 working days for immediate family members. That’s still the case in the new contract, but travelling leave has decreased from 2 days to just 1 day. However, the new contract does say that additional days are possible but are up to the superintendent’s discretion.

The clothing allowance for these workers has increased from $200 to $300.