Wednesday, September 11, 2024

New Members, New Agreements

As the seasons fly by, it is always exciting to see what is happening with CLAC across the prairies

By Dennis Perrin, Prairies Director

Local 301 is pleased to welcome hundreds of members working in new grocery stores in Alberta. Four Buy-Low grocery stores were converted to Save-On-Foods (SOF) stores in recent months. Those stores are in the communities of Athabasca, Langon, Didsbury, and Blackfalds. These new Local 301 members now enjoy the benefit of a collective agreement with excellent terms and conditions and are part of a union that works hard on their behalf in all aspects.

With these additions, Local 301 now represents approximately 4,000 members working in nearly 50 SOF stores in Alberta. We are proud of the hard work accomplished every day by these members to put food on store shelves and ultimately in our homes. Local 301 members are feeding Alberta! Additionally, we represent approximately 400 Local 306 members working in 5 different SOF stores in Manitoba.

Recently, we concluded a wage review with Save-On-Foods mid-collective agreement that contained some very impressive wage gains. We are proud of the work accomplished by the union bargaining committee, which allows these members to keep up with the constant pressures due to cost-of-living increases.

On the construction front, much work is continuing on preparing for the large amount of work that we anticipate for Local 63 members at the Air Products and Dow Chemical sites close to Edmonton. Members with several contractors have already performed work on these sites, and much more is anticipated to occur over the next several months. Air Products will see increased workforce needs in the second half of 2024, with most of the Dow work beginning in 2025.

Members in the construction industry also continue to see impressive wage gains. Wage reviews were recently concluded that saw members working for PCL Energy Inc. (maintenance) and WorleyCord Energy Solutions Ltd. achieve increases to wages. In addition, collective agreement renewals took place with Kiewit Energy Construction Co. ULC (KENCO), Ledcor Construction Ltd. (commercial), Maple Reinders Constructors Ltd., Skway Canada Limited, and Strathcona Mechanical Limited. All renewals resulted in very impressive increases to wages and improvements to various terms and conditions.

In Manitoba, we were pleased to recently ratify renewal collective agreements for bus drivers, educational assistants, library technicians, and school administrative assistants from Garden Valley School Division. Much has been publicized regarding the work stoppage last fall with the educational assistants in the Hanover School Division. We were very pleased to achieve healthy increases for members at Garden Valley without needing to implement a work stoppage.

Lastly, over 200 stewards attended a conference in Lake Louise from April 15 to 18. Stewards from Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan descended on this beautiful mountain location for three and a half days of learning and collaborating.

Stewards came away from the event feeling that they had advanced their skills in representation, conflict resolution, and advocating on behalf of their members. Additionally, it was valuable for them to expand their community and meet other stewards who are dealing with very similar challenges.

New Members, New Agreements

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