Taber education workers pull out of mediation

Earlier this week, the Horizon School Division updated their website regarding contract negotiations with education support workers.

Based out of Taber, the school division oversees the operation of schools in Barnwell, Enchant, Hays, Lomond, Milk River, Taber, Vauxhall, and Warner, as well as schools on nearby Hutterite colonies.

The nearly 200 workers have been without a new contract since the last one expired last August, just two months after it was ratified.

Not only that, but the contract previous to that one expired in August 2020 but wasn’t even ratified until January 2021! This school division has a track record of drawing out the negotiating process.

They’re represented by Local 3203 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and include such positions as administrative assistants, educational assistants, library workers, caretakers, maintenance workers, early learning educators, speech language pathologists, sign language interpreters, food services workers, educational behaviour consultants, and courier drivers.

According to the update, the workers had indicated to the school division back in June that they wanted to begin bargaining on their new agreement. After all, they had just ratified their previous one, which would be expiring in just two months.

However, the two parties didn’t have their first bargaining meeting for 5 months. The next meeting wasn’t until February, 3 months after that. And their most recent meeting was at the beginning of this month.

It was clear early on that the school division had no intention of moving off their original offer of 10% over 4 years, which was forced upon them by the Provincial Bargaining and Compensation Office.

As a result, the worker’s filed back in November to go to mediation, and the two parties met with the mediator earlier this month. But again, they school division refused to offer more than that 10%, so the workers have asked the mediator to “book out”, which would effectively stop mediation.

If the Alberta Labour Relations Board approves the book out, it would trigger a 14-day cooling period, after which, the workers could hold a strike vote and the school division could hold a lockout poll.

Now, a 10% raise might sound like a good chunk of change to turn down, but there’s some perspective that Horizon left out of their post.

Here’s a look at the wage increases for these workers since 2016.

2016	0.00%
2017	0.00%
2018	0.00%
2019	0.00–2.00%
2020	0.00%
2021	0.00%
2022	0.00%
2023	4.00–13.90%
2024	2.75%

So, over the last 9 years, these workers got 6 or 7 years of wage freezes, some of them got a 2% raise in 2019, everyone got a market adjustment raise in 2023, and everyone got a 2.75% raise in February 2024.

Now, let’s compare that to inflation.

In September 2015, the last time the workers got a raise prior to the onslaught of consecutive freezes, the consumer price index in Alberta sat at 134.6.

By September 2023, it has jumped to 166.0, and increase of 31.4, or 23.33%.

Even for those who received a 13.9% market adjustment, it still fell short of making up for the shortfall of 6 (or 7) years of wages freezes, putting those workers still nearly 7.5% behind inflation. Even if we tack on the 2.75% they got in February 2024, it still isn’t enough to cover the difference, let alone the additional 1.93% inflation between September 2023 and September 2024.

And remember, that’s only for those who got the largest market adjustment. Those who got a market adjustment of just 4% in 2023 fare even worse off, getting a real wage cut of 16.51%.

Now, a 10% raise would certainly help make up some of that difference, especially for those with a large market adjustment. But that’s over 4 years, and inflation will increase even more during that same period, which will eat up those raises, putting these workers behind inflation once again.

No wonder these workers want more than 10%.

While the workers have yet to communicate with the school district their intent to strike, the school district is anticipating such an action. Their website update includes all sorts of information for workers and parents about how everyone could be affected by a strike.

For example, they tell workers in their update that they can still come to work if a strike is called and that they may be threatened by the union if they don’t join the strike.

They also stated that there are no prohibitions on employers hiring contracted workers during a strike, setting up for the potential of this school division hiring scab workers if a strike does occur.

It’ll be interesting to see how things play out over the next few weeks.