Last week, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, Trade & Immigration released their February 2026 Bargaining Update, which is a monthly report that provides collective agreement settlement information received by the department.
In February 2026 Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 43 bargaining relationships encompassing
37,540 employees. There were 19 private sector and 24 public sector settlements, covering 5,895 and 31,645 employees respectively.
One of these was for workers employed by Strathcona Shelter Society. These 3 dozen or so workers are unionized with Local 5241 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
The workers at Strathcona Shelter Society operate A Safe Place, a shelter for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. They also provide non-shelter programming, such as community outreach, an elder abuse line, public education, and supports for victims of human trafficking.
These workers include those working in facility support, maintenance, child and youth support, crisis intervention, and outreach.
Their previous collective agreement expired in March 2024. The new agreement, however, was not ratified until this past August, nearly a year and a half later.
Workers will get wage increases in the new agreement, but not until the second year of the agreement. On the plus side, they get two increases in the second year.
| 1 April 2024 | 0.00% |
| 1 April 2025 | 5.00% |
| 1 October 2025 | 4.00% |
| 1 April 2026 | 4.00% |
This works out to a combined 13%, or an average of 4.33% per year over the 3-year agreement. They received a single 2% increase in their last agreement, which was for just 1 year, and an annual average of 0.63% in the agreement prior to that.
By the time the new collective agreement expires next year, all positions will be making over $20 an hour. At the end of the previous agreement, facility support workers and maintenance workers were still making under $20 an hour as a starting wage.
As well, the top level of the wage grade will exceed $30 an hour for support liaisons and those working in crisis prevention and outreach.
Here are some other changes in their new collective agreement.
Extended leaves are no longer included when considering whether a workers has met the probationary period requirements before being considered permanent. As well, probationary workers also now are entitled to all rights and privelges in the collective agreement their fellow workers enjoy in permanent positions.
Workers who trade shifts with each other must provide their manager(s) with 3 days written notice of the shift trade. In the previous collective agreement, it was 5 days notice.
The night shift premium has increased from $1.75 an hour to $2.00 an hour.
The following clause has been added to the collective agreement:
Employees will be advanced 24 hours of sick leave on January 1st of each year. This is part of their annual entitlement and does not increase their entitlement.
In the previous collective agreement, workers could take a leave of absence for union business, although it was without pay or benefits. The “without pay and benefits” has now been removed from the agreement.
Permanent and casual workers can now progress on the wage scale after they have completed 2,080 hours of work or have been employed for 2 years (3 years for casual), whichever comes first. In the previous collective agreement, it was just 2,080 hours.
There is a new section in the collective agreement outlining the restrictions of labour from volunteers, as a way to protect jobs of current workers. This was a letter of understanding in the previous agreement.
