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COVID-19 Updates: Taking steps to return to normal.
Collective bargaining for public sector workers in health, education and other public services is underway.
Albertans are fortunate to have nearly 25,000 dedicated and hard working government employees committed to keeping the province functioning in a safe, secure and productive way.
There are many steps to the bargaining process.
Collective bargaining occurs between the two parties:
If legislatively required, the parties conclude an Essential Services Agreement (ESA) and file the Labour Relations Board.
An ESA is an agreement between the union and the employer that provides details about which essential service must be maintained during a strike or lockout.
Parties file for mediation and it begins, following the Labour Relation's Board acceptance of the ESA, where required.
If mediation is not successful, it is followed by a 14 day cooling off period.
A Labour Relations Board-supervised strike vote (unions) or lockout poll (employers) must be taken and a majority of those voting must agree to the strike or lockout.
One party must serve the other (as well as the mediator) with 72 hours' notice before the strike or lockout begins.
Even before the economic and fiscal crisis, the government was facing a spending challenge. The MacKinnon Report on Alberta’s Finances found that Alberta’s spending per capita is the highest in Canada and has consistently been higher than the average of the 10 provinces over the last 25 years.
Alberta’s annual expenditures would be $10.4 billion less if its per capita spending simply matched the average spending in Canada’s 3 largest provinces: British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
Making public sector services sustainable will require fair and reasonable collective agreements that over time will help bring Alberta’s spending in line with other provinces. This would ensure government can sustain and improve the services Albertans need.
In addition to returning to 2018-19 spending levels, the province has revised its bargaining position, asking the public service to take a 3% compensation reduction.
Albertans pay more than most Canadians for public services. In 2019, we paid $5,470 per person on public sector compensation, compared to $4,834 per person in British Columbia and $4,702 in Ontario.
Some other workers in Alberta's public sector are also compensated higher than their peers are in other comparable provinces.
The annual interest payment on debt could be going to programs and services that benefit all Albertans. The $2.4 billion annual interest payment on debt could pay for:
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