That sounds impressive but it won’t be enough to keep up with inflation during the life of the new contract considering they were behind inflation in their last contract.
Earlier this month, the Mediation Services department of Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published the August 2024 Bargaining Update.
This monthly report provides information about the unionized workforce, primarily in Alberta. In August, Mediation Services received settlement information regarding 28 private sector and 9 public sector bargaining settlements, covering 2,361 and 1,857 workers respectively.
Among those settlements was a contract for 620 workers employed by the Calgary Public Library.
The workers are represented by Local 1169 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which also represents library workers in Cochrane.
The previous contract for the Calgary library workers expired at the end of last year, but their new contract was settled just this past July, about 7 months later. Mediation Services only recently received the contract however.
According to the bargaining update, these workers received wage increases in each year of the new contract: December 31, 2024 of 3%; December 31, 2025 of 3.25%; December 31, 2026 of 3.25%.
That’s a combined 9.5% over 3 years, which works out to 3.17% per year on average. That’s way better than the 5% increase (1.67% average) over 3 years they got in their last contract.
In comparison, the consumer price index of Alberta increased from 144.8 in September 2020 to 165.6 in December 2023. That’s a jump of 20.8, or 14.36%.
So, while these workers were getting a 5% combined wage increase in their last contract, inflation was increasing by nearly triple that amount. That has left these workers with a cut to real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—of 9.36%.
This means that their new raise will barely be enough to get them caught up to inflation over the last 3 years, with hardly anything left to deal with inflation this year, next year, and the final year of the contract.
So, 9.5% sounds impressive, but it’ll still leave them struggling to keep up to the increase to the cost of living, just struggling less.
Full-time workers will also get a $500 lump sum payment, while all other workers will get $250. Keep in mind that lump sum payments are nice, but they don’t increase the base salary that raises are based off of.
Here are some highlights of other changes between the previous contract and the new contract.
In the previous agreement, workers received an extra $1 an hour for every hour worked on Sundays. This will disappear in the new contract, as of 15 December 2024.
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation has been added as a general holiday.
Added to the new contract is bereavement leave for pregnancy loss, which will be available for workers who were pregnant, workers who are spouses to the person who was pregnant, and workers who would’ve otherwise been parents (via adoption or surrogacy, for example) after the pregnancy.
The number of workers who can simultaneously book off time for union business has been increased from 4 to 5.
The boot allowance will increase from $200 to $250 per calendar year and will now be available to caretakers, receiving and store clerks, purchasing and stores assistants, and supervisors in building maintenance and facilities operations.
