Earlier this month, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update regarding negotiations for support staff employed by the University of Lethbridge.
The latest contract for these workers—who include caretakers, lifeguards, groundskeepers, maintenance workers, administrative support, IT, library workers, and various technicians, analysts, and specialist—expired this past June and took over two years to settle.
Negotiations on the new contract have only recently started, with the first meetings between the University of Lethbridge and the workers occurring on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of July, despite the U of L receiving notice from the workers at the beginning of April that they wanted to begin bargaining.
The two parties signed off on over 20 non-monetary items, which are usually easier to negotiate, so parties typically take care of them first.
As far as monetary items go, the University of Lethbridge refused to propose any. They claim that they normally want to finish all the non-monetary negotiations first.
However, they did note that since 2019, the operational grant they receive from the provincial government has fallen by over 20%. In other words, for evert $5 they received in 2019, they’ve since lost $1. This will likely frame how they approach monetary bargaining.
The workers, on the other hand, had no problems putting their monetary proposals on the table from the start, demanding 26% over 3 years.
| 2024 | 13.0% |
| 2025 | 6.5% |
| 2026 | 6.5% |
Now, this might seem like a lot at first glance, but we must remember that these more than 500 workers have received below inflation increases in the last two contracts—far below.
They got nothing but wage freezes under the NDP, and the single wage increase they got in the final year of that contract was through a mediated amount in a wage reopener that wasn’t settled until well into the first term of the UCP administration.
That would be there only wage increase until last year, when they received a combined 2.8%.
Their combined wage increase between 2017 and when their latest contract expired in June was just 3.75%. Meanwhile, the consumer price index increased 24.4% during the same period. That means the workers have seen reduction in real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 20.65%.
For every $1000 they were making in 2017, they’re now making just $794, when adjusted for inflation. If they tried buying the same goods and services now that they paid $1000 for in 2017, they’d need to cough up $1,206.50. Either that, or be able to afford only $794 worth.
Remember, that’s including the 3.75% in wage increases they’ve received since 2017.
They are also proposing a cost-of-living adjustment in this contract, which I found interesting, given that when I was an AUPE member during my 9-year stint as a U of L employee, we had a COLA in our contract.
Under the proposal, workers would get a lump-sum payment at the end of each year, the size of which would be determined by inflation that year.
Finally, the workers are proposing that the lowest wage paid to any U of L worker be $22.98 an hour, which they call a living wage.
Bargaining won’t resume again until October, so there’s a good chance that this may turn into a long process, similar to last time.
