Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update regarding contract negotiations for workers employed by Strathcona County.
AUPE represents about 170 municipal workers employed by the county, including drivers, concrete workers, survey workers, equipment operators, wastewater workers, welders, mechanics, utility workers, instrument technicians, electricians, and labourers.
The last collective agreement for these workers expired at the end of 2024, nearly a year ago. Workers ratified it this past February, and it was for only a year, retroactive to the start of 2024.
Strathcona County has a habit of reaching a tentative agreement after the previous one has expired.
For example, the previous contract was retroactive to the beginning of 2020 but was not ratified until May 2023, with only 7 months left in the 4-year contract. Part of that reason was that the workers voted to reject the first tentative agreement.
And the contract before that one was ratified in April 2018, 15 months after it technically went into effect.
Even though the latest collective agreement expired last December, negotiations did not begin until this past January. Even then, the employer did not present a wage offer until this month.
| 2025 | 3.00% |
| 2026 | 2.00% |
| 2027 | 2.00% |
That is a combined 7% over 3 years, or 2.33% per year, on average. This year, public sector workers have been typically receiving 12% over 4 years, for an annual average of 3%, so this is less than that.
Here is how it has compared to the last 2 collective agreements.
| 2020 | 0.50% |
| 2021 | 0.00% |
| 2022 | 1.00% |
| 2023 | 2.50% |
| 2024 | 2.50% |
In the 5 years leading up to when their last collective agreement expired, these workers received a combined wage increase of 6.5%. That works out to an annual average of just 1.3%.
The wage increases Strathcona County have proposed to their workers is certainly better the 1.3% they got per year in their last 2 collective agreements.
But there is some more context we must keep in mind.
Between January 2019 and January 2024, the consumer price index in Alberta rose by 25.4 points, from 140.5 to 165.9. That is an 18.08% increase.
Because inflation was 18.08% during the same period that these workers received a combined 6.5% increase, that increase was actually a real wage cut of 11.58%.
A 7% wage increase will not be enough to make up for a loss of 11.58% in real wages. As well, remember that the 7% would be spread out over 3 years, which means another 3 years of inflation.
And inflation between January 2024 and October 2025 (the most recent data available) has already increased 4.4%, which is already more than half of what Strathcona County has proposed for the entire contract.
The workers’ bargaining team—which includes a wastewater operator, 2 heavy equipment technicians, and 2 equipment operators—called this offer “a long way from what we need”.
According to the bargaining team, the next negotiations session will not be until next January, which will mean over a year since the expiration of their last collective agreement.
They plan to present a counteroffer a that meeting, but given how low increases have been over the last 5 years, I cannot imagine that the Strathcona County will outright accept whatever the counteroffer ends up being.
In 2025, AUPE has been offering 26% over 3 years: 13% in the first year, followed by 2 years of 6.5% each. It will be interesting to see how close to that their counteroffer will be and how Strathcona Country responds to it.
If Strathcona County comes back with something too low, these workers will have no qualms about rejecting it, as they have done in the past.
