Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on their website regarding workers employed by the University of Calgary.
These more than 5,000 U of C workers are non-faculty support staff, and they provide technical, administrative, trades, and programme support services for students, faculty, and administration at the university.
Their most recent collective agreement expired over 2 years ago, in March 2024.
According to last week’s update, the bargaining team for the workers—which includes a scheduling coordinator, an admissions specialist, a bioscience technician, an executive administrator, and a lab supervisor—have reached a tentative agreement with the University of Calgary.
The new 4-year contract will expire in March 2028, which means it is already more than half over.
It includes a 3% wage increase in every year of the contract, including retroactive increases for this year, last year, and the first year of the contract.
| 1 April 2024 | 3.00% |
| 1 April 2025 | 3.00% |
| 1 April 2026 | 3.00% |
| 1 April 2027 | 3.00% |
| 12.00% |
This is pretty much what all workers have seen in public sector collective agreements agreed to since last spring, so this was not unexpected.
The U of C had originally proposed 7.5% over 4 years. so the tentative agreement is more than that.
| Year 1 | 2.00% |
| Year 2 | 2.00% |
| Year 3 | 1.75% |
| Year 4 | 1.75% |
| 7.50% |
In contrast, the workers’ bargaining team had proposed much larger increases and only a 3-year contract.
| Year 1 | 13.00% |
| Year 2 | 6.50% |
| Year 3 | 6.50% |
| 26.00% |
That may seem like a lot at first glance, and way out of touch with what the University of Calgary had asked for, but keep in mind that these workers had several years of wage freezes.
In fact, 2023 was the first time since 2017 that these workers had received a raise.
Between 2017 and 2023, wages for these workers has increased by 5.1%, according to the AUPE. During that same period, inflation had increased by 24.4%. These workers saw a cut to real wages of nearly 20% over 7 years!
Their proposal was trying to make up for the 19.3% lost increases, and then using the remaining 8.87% to cover inflation for the life of the contract, which would have averaged out to less than 3% per year.
While 12% is better than another 4 years of wage freeze, it falls short of covering the 19.3% real wage cut, leaving these workers with a 7.3% cut to real wages, and that is not even including the 4 years of additional inflation in the new collective agreement. Inflation in Alberta since their last wage increase has already increased by 7.88%.
The workers had to move 14 percentage points on their offer, while the university moved just 4.5 points.
The proposed annual increase is, of course, 3%, higher than the 1.86% average proposed by U of C but lower than the 8.67% the workers wanted.
Not really a meet-in-the-middle contract.
Again, it is better than nothing but nowhere near sufficient.
The workers’ bargaining team managed to negotiate a two-tiered minimum wage into the proposed agreement: $19.00 for all student workers and $22.86 for everyone else.
If workers ratify the agreement, they will see their flex spending account increase from $850 per year to $1,000 per year.
Coverage for chiropractic, massage and physiotherapy would double from $600 per year to $1,200 year. As well, the cap would chang from $30 per visit to 80% per visit.
Dental coverage has increased $500 a year, from $1,500 to $2,000.
There would also be a new vision care benefit of $300 every 2 years, which can be used for glasses, contact lenses, and intraocular lenses. Plus, eye exam coverage would increase from $40 every 2 years to $100 every 2 years.
The University of Calgary has agreed to increase its premium contributions towards the workers’ extended health benefit and dental benefit.
| Old | New | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health, single | $75 | $116.23 | $41.23 |
| Health, family | $186 | $288.59 | $102.59 |
| Dental, single | $44 | $50.51 | $6.51 |
| Dental, family | $110 | $129.93 | $19.93 |
Bereavement leave would increase from 3 days to 5 days.
The workers’ bargaining team will hold an information session later today to explain the tentative agreement and answer questions workers have.
Voting will take place at a later date.
