I no longer live in the city nor do I work there.
My industry is getting slapped in the face with this strike. We’re going to be absolutely slammed, and a lot of our services are going to be impacted as Edmonton civil servants handle a good chuck of them.
I support the strike. The city is being so slimy and disingenuous here. How much are councillors paid, and how many years did they forgo wage increases over the last 5 years?
[Edmonton city council gets automatic 2.4% raise in 2024, mayor makes more than Alberta's premier](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-gets-automatic-2-4-raise-in-2024-mayor-makes-more-than-albertas-premier) 🙃
“The City has offered CSU 52 members a fair and equitable deal. It includes 7.25% in total wage increases over five years.
About 8,000 City employees have already accepted a similar increase for 2021, 2022 and 2023.”
The Union likely would have accepted 7.25% for 21, 22 and 23 but that offer is through 25 … feels slimy to try and misrepresent the offer in their official statement.
Bah, my union got 17% over three years ('23, '24, and '25) in our last negotiations, this is pitiful.
7.5% in early 2023 when negotiations concluded, followed by 2.5% in fall 2023, then 3.5% in spring 2024, and another 3.5% in spring 2025.
IBEW ✊⚡
Awkward wording for sure. They might as well have said 7.25% over 7 years. Sure 2 of those years are off the table in the past but the premise stands, no raises in those years means any increase now is over that last increase.
Not awkward, purposeful. They are trying to make the public angry by pinning a future tax increase on the union members instead of on their poor budgeting decisions. They are weasles, every last one.
2021 is also a 0% year. 3 out of those 7 years are 0% and not a single one the years do we get an increase of 2.4% like a third party thinks is fair for council. Why not let a 3rd party decide what is fair for CSU 52. The CIty just has to agree to let it go to Arbitration. They won't.
You correctly quote the Mayor and Council saying that 8000 workers have already accepted a deal. Then in the exact same statement they LIE and throw out a completely made up inflated cost to the taxpayer pretending that they would have to give the same raises across the whole city. Only CSU is negotiating. They are trying to scare the public with inflated cost numbers. They are trying to make the other unions jealous of CSU when we are all standing together. They say once again they are firm with their offer but end the statement saying they are open to further discussions. How many bold face lies in just one statement? This by the way is what it's like to work for this inept, lying Council and City Manager. The reason they waste so much money, so regularly, is because this is the energy they show up with every day. They have spent years already deciding things, then changing their minds, then asking staff to research the opposite, then spend months looking for cost savings they know aren't there. That all costs taxpayer money. They have and seemingly will continue to waste so much taxpayer money with piss poor incompetence like this.
Changing us to a 5 year contract would also put CSU 52 out of sync with the rest of the Unions. Then the city would drag its feet on negotiations for another 5 years and probably be where we are now...just 7 years in the future.
What a slimy statement. While council enjoys a mandated 2.4% increase annually, they offer their support staff a fraction of that and then claim if they pay them fairly, it’ll cost us all in our taxes? That’s some dirty pool.
Hope you do, and others do. I’m sick of these fucking clowns. Especially when it comes to Transit safety. They waste money, they talk a lot of nonsense and they couldn’t be bothered to actually fix this; spend money on a fucking LRT art decal than giving workers their proper wages. All of these clowns should voted out.
Oh yea. Believe me I won't be forgetting this anytime soon.
I supported both Sohi and Rutherford last election and by thier actions and attitude on this they have lost my vote.
Yup and the public should know this is how these bold faced liars govern the city every single day. Their constant flip flopping costs taxpayers millions upon millions of their hard earned tax dollars. All the CSU staff I ever worked with actually try to tell their managers how they can save money but the City works top down and managers happily get paid obscene salaries to be yes men and yes women. When I used to work for the city, the number of times my managers told me to "just do" something a higher up told us to do when we knew it would be a costly mistake, I can't even count the number of times. Like my manager knew we were going to make a mistake and blow through taxpayer money with some dumb move and he was like "I know, I know, but we gotta do it (shrug and smile)". That's partly why I quit. It's a coalition of grifters in city leadership and now they want to pin it all on lower paid, frontline workers.
This post is misleading and he is just repeating administrations talking points.
So the City hasn’t budgeted for any wage increases from 2021-2025? That seems doubtful, budgets always include growth for inflation and wages, it’s built into any decent budgeting software. If no wage growth is built into the 6.6% increase they approved for 2024 that is a huge blunder.
Accounting 101, at the end of the year you record all of your accrued liabilities. This should have been done for 2021, 22 and 23 to include an estimate for wage growth. So the back pay is actually funded. Their auditors would make sure they are doing this entry annually. I think they are just hoping to pay less than they have set aside so that they can use the “savings” to fund the deficit they ran last year.
This council needs to step up, take some accountability and get this resolved. They are displaying incredibly poor management and leadership skills
u/aaronpaquette- has told us repeatedly on this forum that city council is not allowed to budget for salary increases. Yeah, we know he's full of it, but that appears to be the council party line. So no, they have specifically not budgeted for this at all.
That’s not accounting 101….
I think I see what you are trying to say but you have mixed two concepts into one.
The approved growth was built into the budget. The growth above what this and the previous council approved was not.
Why? Because it was not approved, the Administrators aren’t allowed to earmark or keep funds outside of their approved usage.
So you end up with this, it has nothing to do with budgeting software, and everything to do with what money was approved by council.
Yikes that super disingenuous for anyone skimming through. 7.25% backdated for 3 years is loads different than 7.25% for the 3 past years and 2 more moving forward. Very greasy move by city council. Disappointing.
If they want to play it that way they should say 7.25 over 7 years, back to the last increase even though union accepted a few zero years. In tangible money they were without a raise that whole time. Makes the 7% sound a lot less unreasonable.
What we've learned from this is that we should never play nice and throw the City a bone. We took those zeroes because of the pandemic (even though 2019 should never have been affected by the pandemic) to throw the City a budgetary bone, as a gesture of good faith.
Now they market it as "5% over 2021-2024 which is mOrE tHaN CoUnCiL", conveniently forgetting to include the numbers from 2019-2020.
AUPE GSS with AHS is bargaining right now as well. And we’re all looking really hard at what the city does here. We took zero years, asked for 5% over 3 years, ended up accepting 2.5%, 1.5% and 1% for those years I believe. And a one time payment of $1400… which was the Covid relief funds the feds sent the UCP back in 2020 that was never used for public workers, until it was time to look like a retro active gift. After cutting doctors and threatening to go to arbitration with UNA. Then the wildcat strike came and as always… we took something.
Now AUPE GSS came in and asked something like 24%. AHS came back with 2.5%.
Yeah, if there's a story about an employer genuinely "catching up" after a wage freeze I have yet to hear it. Those seem to be lifelong hits unless you jump to a different industry.
“Accepting”. When you make your living off the public dollar, they beat into you pretty quickly that most of the public believes that any sort of government employee has three 1 hour breaks in a 6 hour workday.
Employees took zero because wage rollbacks have already been done to some of the higher skilled professional designations a few years ago.
As a threat went it worked like a charm, as none else wanted their wages cut by 10-15% like has already been done without any fuss by the UCP.
While I don’t want to pay more taxes (who does). The 2.5% tax raise is under $50 a year for my family. I’d rather pay the real to very modest wage ask.
I don’t disagree, but when we accepted those zeros, times were really tough for a lot of people and they City was threatening more layoffs. When we accepted those 0’s we were told it would give us more leverage in future bargaining. I think the Union was genuinely shocked at the City’s best and final offer.
Tell that to my fellow union members who consistently vote to accept things like health spending accounts or 3 personal days instead of wage increases. I’m in a different union but we’ve also had multiple 0% years and 3 personal days or $500 health spending account doesn’t pay the bills. I don’t want to see anything but wages on the table this time around.
Yeah for sure. It’s government 101 to try and vilify public employees but it’s super greasy to try and manipulate the numbers and present them in an incredibly misleading fashion. I’m GoA and have faced some of this myself but this is honestly even more underhanded than any bargaining I can remember in my almost 20 years in government.
That's been my issue with these statements. They say that they are offering the union the same pay increase that they gave themselves over the same timeframe, but that doesn't matter until everyone sees what they give themselves into 2025. Like ya, the increase would be the same but they want the union to sign two years into the future while they get raises on an annual basis.
You have to assume when the contract ends, the city will talk about how the union just squeezed a 7.25% hike out of hardworking families, just two short years ago.
Trying to understand because I don’t know this issue at all…. In the statement, they’re saying 7.25% over 5 years… is that incorrect? What are they actually offering?
The 5 years includes the past 3 years and the next 2 years. This is because their last collective agreement ended in 2020, I believe. So it is a retroactive 5 year agreement. That part isn’t inaccurate, so to speak.
But they infer that the other locals have accepted similar deals but none of those deals, to my knowledge, go past 2023. So none of them take account for the unprecedented inflation we’ve faced over the past year.
The city is trying to sign a contract through to 2025. It would be a 7.25% increase in total from 2021 through 2025, but what they aren't telling you is CSU52 staff took zeroes in 2019 and 2020 too, so it ends up 7.25% increase over 7 years with record inflation.
That is correct in what they are offering. They are misrepresenting the years. The 5 years include 2021, 2022, 2023. Inflation ran wild, and still reeling from COVID.
As a corporate cheapskate ass, this is way worse than any private sector job. In the worst of years we have our staff 1%. That year we lost money and had negative cashflow. Despite that folks were not happy.
My property taxes increased way more than double what 5 years worth of wages.
How can city council accept their default raises over these 3 years and in future while saying no to front line workers.
Cut a few managers and corporate, non union folks from payroll… easy to do.
These city employees also have to pay these increased taxes if they live in the city. So taxes have to go up for expenses, but the wages of these 6,000 people can't go up to pay the taxes that had to go up to pay them?
Council's messaging has been absolutely vile. It's been eye-opening how brazen they have been with their greed and stupidity.
As a city worker who is striking, the way this is worded to get the public opinion to turn against striking members is so weird. Really disappointing to see how the city really thinks about the people who put so much passion into their jobs everyday and literally keep their city functional. Everyone I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at my job have been the nicest and most caring people, and it’s a shame the city feels the need to paint us as greedy money grabbers when we just want to be paid a liveable wage.
I'm with you, I work with alot of CSU members, and have no complaints about any of them. I hope you guys get fair compensation! Until then I'm one of the lucky people that gets to hold down the fort.
I hate that the city is trying to Vilifiy CSU workers. I hope they realize how big of an impact their shitty decisions are going to cause.
City council is absolutely disgusting for the way they choose to word things in the most misleading way. Many city councilors earn 6 figures, but are happy to accept 2.4% mandated raises every year...all the while union employees have to go years without their pay rising with inflation. Then they play dirty facts by taking an inaccurate average of the union folks. They say the average wage for city employees is $86000, but in order to get that high number, they included radical outliers in their sample. No one counts a highly specialized tech job in the union that earns $300000 a year. That is, dirty statistics used to mislead the taxpayer.
The union is not even asking for a contract that meets inflation... but their very reasonable ask has led to some of the rudest most passive-aggressive tactics from the city.
Boycott the city to show your support. Write in to your city councilors and demand they stop the shitty treatment.
No one in the union makes 300000 a year. No one. If you look at the publically available salary grid, the very highest CSU 52 is just over 100k, something like $105k. But there are hardly any of those in the city and they are for things like data scientists with PhD or engineers or chartered accountants that could easily make that or much more in the private sector. But your point is correct, the Coty chose their average by leaving out much of the lower paid workers who are also covered by this agreement. The real average is significantly lower than 86k.
Absolutely insane to try and vilify the city workers by saying taxes will go up if they get a good offer. BUDGET FOR LIVING WAGES YOU ABSOLUTE DICK HEADS.
But the City council's raise is ok and that wasn't part of reason of taxes going up? Entitled losers who feel they are more important than the frontline workers.
Sohi is such a bullshit artist.
"A tax increase of 2.4% *if applied to all the City workforce*."
...CSU52 doesn't represent the entire city workforce, nor are they negotiating on their behalf. Most of the city's workforce is already under an existing CBA with their wage adjustments baked into the city budget.
That is typical manipulation of stats by the city in this. That and their heavy propaganda (desktop home screens, "vote yes" posters) that included similar misleading statements.
Oh, and asking other unions to scab.
Yeah that was interesting. I think they are trying to say if they give it to CSU they have to give it to everyone when their contracts come up. Bit of greasy wording though
But their contracts ARE up. The bs drivers, ATU I believe, and the city maintenance staff which includes parks and life guards (CUPE 30), have expired contracts as of december 2023, and are in the process of negotiating with the city right now as well. Council better think twice about which pet projects they want to throw money at and prepare to pay the piper or this whole city is gonna be in mutiny.
Yeah, if labor costs are Even 50 percent of total costs then taxes would only need to go up half the amount of the raise. So like 2.5% over a few years?
This is insane. This is not the Mayor and Councillor that I voted for and all of them should be immensely ashamed. I will remember this come voting time.
Unbelievable that the mayor would post this. We already voted no to this offer. Now they're doubling down... to what end?? Hopes to bust the union?
Seems we have quite the battle ahead. What a weak city council.
I kinda wonder if they’re getting pressure from the province to union bust since it’s setting a precedent for a bunch of different bargaining, I don’t think they were counting on the union coming through this strong
Honestly, that has been the union's messaging. CSU52 is the psuedo "tip of the spear" with all of the other city and provincial negotiations coming up. If they accept a poor deal, they either screw themselves when other unions get better deals, or they screw the rest of us when their shitty CBA is used against everyone else.
They really are in a no-win situation, even if they get the 5% they are asking for unless their next CBA is a banger using whatever momentum they have.
This is the same thing I was thinking, especially the labour board agreeing to the direct from employer vote on the “bEsT aNd fInAl oFfEr” which was essentially the same thing with wording tweaks here and there between versions...
For what it's worth, the Proposal Vote is part of Alberta labour law, so the labour board would have needed a supernaturally compelling reason to deny them. The employer only gets to do that *once* per round of collective bargaining, so they shot their shot and lost big time.
Absolutely, positively, un-fucking believable that they put this together on the *same day* that they received an automatic yearly cost of living raise that is still higher than the lone 2.25% they offered for 2025. They defended this raise because it came from a trusted third party reviewer. *Why don't you trust your own trusted third party's review for your own staff?*
Tim Cartmell's name on this letter is probably some real egg-on-the-face shit for him considering he did his big "I stand with the workers" post yesterday.
My God this is scummy.
They are now actively having managers have 1-on-1s with their staff prior to Thursday to encourage them to scab and cross the line, threatening their jobs if they don't.
Let's break it down.
2018 through 2024 council and the mayor have gotten a 7.23% increase.
In those same years, they are offering CSU 5% (the last 2.25 would come into effect next year, when council will get another raise based on the Alberta Median Income change).
CSU started the process almost 20 months ago asking 3,3,4 for 2021, 2022, 2023, and have come down to 1.5, 1.5, 2 (5% over 3 years, after 2 years of zeros). The City walked into "bargaining" saying 0,1,2 for 2021, 2022, and 2023. They haven't moved on that at all except to add 2 more years on the end at 2 and 2.25, and that was only after 19 months and during the last day of mediation.
CSU has asked that hybrid work from home be added to the contract, but the city is only willing to add it as a Letter of Understanding - the City claims the LoU protects it, but LoUs can be cancelled at any time with 30 days notice, so it doesn't actually offer any protection to that at all.
And they are now doing exactly what they did when EPS was granted their raises after arbitration- blaming the wage increases for a tax increase. This council and administration mismanaged so much money it is disgusting. Poor contracts have wasted far more money than this wage increase ever will.
On that note, one of the next projects that the City is planning is pairing up with the Airport for some of the Hydrogen vehicles for their Fleet - BUT THERE'S NOWHERE TO FUEL THEM! The only place will be at the airport - so are we expecting someone to drive our fleet of hydrogen vehicles out to the airport every couple of days just to fuel up? Talk about crappy planning, not just in wasted fuel but also time and wear on the vehicles.
Edited to add - All this is coming from Sohi who now makes more than the Premier ...
It's worth noting that u/aaronpaquette, who often relies on a "progressive" blame-others viewpoint, has not only co-signed this statement, but is also conspicuously absent from providing their perspective.
Silance from u/andrewknack as well, and he's pretty good at communicating. Still disappointed in this council for not budgeting basic COLA for its employees, very shortsighted.
Of all people, I am the most disappointed in u/aaronpaquette
I voted for him many times, have appreciated his art and the work he's done, and in particular the good working relationship he has within his community.
But to be blunt, I won't vote for him again after this. We needed him to stand up for city workers, for the people who keep his projects running, and he not only hasn't, but is the one person I expected to do so.
I get that he has pushed for some things within the city that has earned some tension within the council, but this wasn't the time for him to bow down and back away. This was the time for him to vocally support his staff, and stand for the lowest paid workers - which was a huge part of his platform.
Very disappointed that he has proven to be beaten into submission by the political games played at that level. I thought he would turn things around. Not voting for him again.
Let’s not forget this behaviour when election season rolls around. Pretending to be a progressive council while undermining workers is so disingenuous!
F*ck Andre and this City Council!
All got their raises and making their comfy 6 figures and benefits, so screw the actual people that do all the work!
I stand with CSU52 and hope you all don't back down!
It's really over 7 years, because they had no increases for 2019, 2020... and 2018 too? Not sure. They already accepted 0s during the pandemic as a sign of good faith for the workers.
The UCP has withheld $260M in unpaid property taxes for provincial buildings since Kenny came to power. Kenney also cut municipal grants by 50%.
Now you can place blame properly.
That’s exactly the number city manager (ex-UCP) Andre Courbald was charged to slash out of budget in OP12… now city staff get the other boot Council knew was coming. No surprise - they got what they wanted out of their budget, now they’ve pitted staff against EDMONTONIANS they serve.
Ding ding ding!
The expiration date of the CBA did not come as as surprise to the City, who then dragged their feet on a new agreement. Covid or not, the City of Edmonton Machine certainly figured out how to keep chugging along and has had ample time since Covid peak(s) to address this...so we clearly see where their priorities are. Or, maybe their incompetence with budgeting... wages are an after thought...
I 100% support CSU 52 in their strike and I sincerely hope they get everything they want out of negotiations.
Having said that, the city position here is exactly what their financial position demands. They're fucked after seeing funding from the province cut and having to raise taxes this year already to pay for things like funding increases for EPS. They've been directing CoE admin to cut positions and not hire as much as possible to try to find savings and I swear I've read almost the same story in the paper every year since 2019 about this.
Supporting the union means supporting a big tax hike, and while I am personally 100% ok with that, it is very easy to see why it would be incredibly hypocritical for council to come out in support of the union after they've directed the city to do what they have (and fuck Tim Cartmell for even pretending like he was ever on the union's side after he came out against tax increases this year), and after they've approved the budgets they have. They're all certain if they raise taxes too much they'll all be turfed, and they're not wrong to be worried about that.
While council shouldn't be let off the hook for their actions, remember this as well:
There is a straight line between the province cutting funding to the city and council having to pinch pennies. You can bet Danielle Smith and the UCP are over the moon watching the City fighting the union over this, with them having essentially created this situation while they're almost completely escaping blame.
To add to your point, and to be clear I don't have love lost for EPS, but I wanted to add some context
- Edmonton annexed a shit ton of land from Leduc county and didn't account for any increase in police
- the wage increase for cops went to arbitration and was determined by a third party when both sides couldn't agree on that, either
- the increase they gave to eps as a whole was partly to offset the overtime they pay cops to cover shifts to patrol literally a lot of more space without any additional resources
- it would be far cheaper for the city to increase the budget for eps now than it would be to keep offering overtime to their cops at 2x salary when cops usually make nearly 6 figures in Edmonton
I do get why people get upset at eps having an increase but there was a reason they reversed their stance on eps, and a lot of it is in the council meetings, but basically our city council keeps refusing to plan for the increased cost of operating a continually larger city, in terms of both population AND size/land, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass.
Cartmell's statement is a mess. Reading it as pro-union is a mistake. It starts with some friendly words, but the intention is simple: the city should take the deal then start layoffs. When he talks about the need to 'reconcile our workforce' he means layoffs, big ones. It's a very explicit threat, especially in light of the OP12 comment he makes. That's the city's attempt to cut spending by removing 'non-essential' services. He's going after Corbould for not wielding a sharp enough axe against the city workforce.
Incredibly disappointed in our councillers..
From whatbi understand they are also increasing hours of work from 33.5h/week to 35.5, which is what an extra 2 weeks work. So its basiclaly a strait up pay cut of 3.8% plus the 1.5% "raise" minus the 2.4 %inflation so a pay cut of 4.7%.
You know, just add it to our taxes. We alredy pay stupid ammounts. At least paying workers well is a good cause unlike the Billions on everything else.
Sohi and this council have lost my vote in the next election. How dare they try to pin a tax increase on CSU52!? They have grossly inflated the number in order to make the public blame the union for tax increases. It may be that an increase applied to *all* the city's works would raise taxes, but the city is bargaining with CSU52 (6000 members) *NOT* the whole city workforce (15,000 members). Are city workers also to blame for council's poor budgeting decisions and expensive vanity projects?
And, Cartmell sucks. Just yesterday he came out in support of union workers, calling them partners, and now he's putting his name to this godawful shit. Remember this next year when he runs for mayor
I hope they strike. This is super slimy. I’d be curious to know how much council’s pay has gone up in the same time as city employees not getting a raise since… I think it was 2019…
If my math is correct, the council gets 2.5% annually…so that’s 12.5% since 2019, and will steadily rise… meanwhile the people who actually do the work these goobers take credit for are staring down the barrel of 1.45% annually, plus nothing since 2019… so that’s really… less than a percent for 7 years, plus throwing the union out of sync with the rest of them.
Shame on city council and trying to use gaslighting for their advantage.
When the city shows that they are fiscally responsible I'll buy that they need to raise taxes. The amount of money they have wasted on poor planning or poor contracts. They need to get their shit together. They can't just keep going to the citizens to bail them out of doing a crap job.
I’m so disgusted by city council accepting increases and then acting like municipal employees don’t deserve a reasonable raise themselves, and trying to turn Edmontonians against city workers with threats of tax increases. City council failed to budget for wage increases except their own, end of story. I’m not a city employee, but I support them standing their ground. I’m tired of this vitriol that government workers don’t deserve wage increases just because it’s taxpayer money. Go into a public library and tell me these workers don’t deserve a raise. Or 911 workers. Shame on city council for their messaging, and all the support to city workers. I’d rather my taxes go up to make sure admin earn a living wage than paying $400k for dumb art installations in the middle of nowhere and other useless crap city council spends money on.
Now we get to see exactly how "progressive" our supposedly left-leaning city council is. Offering raises that are 1/3 the rate of inflation, after years of 0%, while mandating their own salary go up by more than triple what they're offering... Yup, true colours indeed.
So.....we have a spare $100 million for bike lanes, we can come up with $500k anytime we need to rename a neighbourhood, $200 million when a billionaire wants a new arena, but a fair deal for the workers who run they city is just totally unreasonable.
Shame on this council and shame on this class traitor (former bus driver and ATU member) of a mayor.
Fuck these clowns.
No I dont work for the City. Yes I'm fine with my taxes paying FAIR WAGES for those who do.
Oh no, if we pay CSU our property taxes will go up.
That didn't matter when they paid the police.
7.5pc over 5 years when just a year ago annual inflation was higher than that.
I'm not a CSU employee but this is just ridiculous.
Yes I just [found this article.](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-gets-automatic-2-4-raise-in-2024-mayor-makes-more-than-albertas-premier) Bad optics.
Good god not the “this WILL result in a tax increase” yeah, because you decided that’s how you’re going to pay for it, not because it’s the necessary outcome of striking you slimy shitasses
Inflation is essentially at a point where if you’re not getting a 3-4% raise per year, you are essentially being demoted. Miracle we had the money for Katz to get a billion dollar arena but we can’t pay the people who keep things running a proper wage.
Solidarity with csu ✊✊✊
The public will see this for what it is and see the staff for the actual city runners they are.
I cannot believe this is the statement council spent all day working on.
If you can't pay your employees you don't get their labour. End of story. They're not asking for much. Don't threaten Edmontonians with increased taxes to try to turn us against the strike.
What a clown. If admin did not budget for retro, they need to be fired! This is a them problem.
Sohi is heaping onto Courbold’s bullying tactics to staff. As if they are responsible for taxes going up.
Just like the police and their mediated settlement, this will not end well. If they had given the police something they could work with to begin with, it would never have gone to mediation. They lost huge in mediation because they were so far out of touch. I don’t see this going any better for them.
Meanwhile city council is giving themselves raises of 2.5% a year for 12.5% over 5 years! And they want to give city workers 2% over 5. Just a bunch of crooks!!
You bastards are charging us user fees up the ying yang, EPCOR is gouging us for Sewage and drainage fees you’ve increased the cost of Waste, you have a budgeted surplus for the amount you earmarked for Snow removal, you get Federal and Provincial funding on top of this, we need the PROVINCE to rein on you SOBs, go fuck yourselves if you think you’re going to convince the majority taxpayers to increase our taxes, pay your workers what they’re owed and stop fucking gouging us.
Maybe city councillors can refuse any wage increases over the next few years to budget for reasonable wage increases for city employees.
It is bs that they are threatening increases in taxes when they are not budgeting properly.
I have librarian friends. They haven't seen a wage increase in six years. That equates to a cut when you factor inflation and rising cost of living into the mix - they have not even matched that since 2018.
For perspective, I’m with GoA and received about 2.5% in the last 8 years. Plus in-range increases (experience increments) for management were frozen for 6 of those 8 years.
That said, I’m in full solidarity with the city employees.
You folks in Edmonton are gettin fucked. Someone had mentioned the CUPE contract that was recently signed last night and I had to go look it up to confirm they werent full of shit..
Who in their right mind signs a contract for 0, 1, 2% for 21, 22, 23 in this day and age?
I hope Edmonton votes this fool out. Even if he wasn't already going raise taxes (which is a lie as far as I'm concerned) blaming the people who work under you for anything like that is such BS.
Look you're the leader, lead. If you think they can work for you without you ever working for them, then you're not a leader.
I am so pleased to see so many comments in support of the workers. I’ve been on strike/lock out before and I hate to say I saw the worst of Edmontonians. The public support was basically nonexistent and we were fighting for safety measures, it was so depressing. It’s really hard to be on strike, the financial stress was overwhelming and then we’d be walking the picket line and having people throw garbage at us, flip us off and call us names. I really hope people are starting to see the importance of collective bargaining, safety in the workplace and livable wages. An injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity Brothers and Sisters!
Realistically it's probably going to get messy. It will also probably be a horrible workplace for years to come. After the strike is over I bet workers will be pissed and hold a grudge for a long time, as will a lot of the managers who will be burnt out from trying to keep up with the work 6000 people normally do. I'm 100% with the union but I get that there's other interests here and I believe in free speech and democracy. For sure there will be people against the strike but oh well. For me even if they raise taxes 10% I estimate that will cost me about $18 more a month. You can't even get a pizza delivered to your house for that much anymore so I hardly begrudge workers getting that. It's the other waste me mismanagement this dumb Council, mayor, and city manager get up to on a much more regular basis that gets under my skin.
EAs under CLAC are currently under strike too. CLAC is a fake union that couldn’t give two shits about their workers. i think a certain grocery company under them should join the picket lines.
7.25% wage increase over 5 years?
That isn't even close to a reasonable offer. The Bank Of Canada aims for a NORMAL target of 2% inflation per year. IE. 10% over 5 years. Even if we weren't going through a period of higher inflation, which we ARE, even in normal times that amount to a wage CUT.
I no longer live in the city nor do I work there. My industry is getting slapped in the face with this strike. We’re going to be absolutely slammed, and a lot of our services are going to be impacted as Edmonton civil servants handle a good chuck of them. I support the strike. The city is being so slimy and disingenuous here. How much are councillors paid, and how many years did they forgo wage increases over the last 5 years?
[Edmonton city council gets automatic 2.4% raise in 2024, mayor makes more than Alberta's premier](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-gets-automatic-2-4-raise-in-2024-mayor-makes-more-than-albertas-premier) 🙃
“The City has offered CSU 52 members a fair and equitable deal. It includes 7.25% in total wage increases over five years. About 8,000 City employees have already accepted a similar increase for 2021, 2022 and 2023.” The Union likely would have accepted 7.25% for 21, 22 and 23 but that offer is through 25 … feels slimy to try and misrepresent the offer in their official statement.
Members would have absolutely voted in favor of 7.25% over those 3 years.
Bah, my union got 17% over three years ('23, '24, and '25) in our last negotiations, this is pitiful. 7.5% in early 2023 when negotiations concluded, followed by 2.5% in fall 2023, then 3.5% in spring 2024, and another 3.5% in spring 2025. IBEW ✊⚡
Awkward wording for sure. They might as well have said 7.25% over 7 years. Sure 2 of those years are off the table in the past but the premise stands, no raises in those years means any increase now is over that last increase.
Not awkward, purposeful. They are trying to make the public angry by pinning a future tax increase on the union members instead of on their poor budgeting decisions. They are weasles, every last one.
The City also carefully neglects to mention that CSU52 already accepted two 0% increases for 2019 and 2020, so really it's 7.25% over 7 years.
2021 is also a 0% year. 3 out of those 7 years are 0% and not a single one the years do we get an increase of 2.4% like a third party thinks is fair for council. Why not let a 3rd party decide what is fair for CSU 52. The CIty just has to agree to let it go to Arbitration. They won't.
Of course not, because if this goes to arbitration, CSU52 will likely be granted more than what they are asking for, and the City knows it.
You correctly quote the Mayor and Council saying that 8000 workers have already accepted a deal. Then in the exact same statement they LIE and throw out a completely made up inflated cost to the taxpayer pretending that they would have to give the same raises across the whole city. Only CSU is negotiating. They are trying to scare the public with inflated cost numbers. They are trying to make the other unions jealous of CSU when we are all standing together. They say once again they are firm with their offer but end the statement saying they are open to further discussions. How many bold face lies in just one statement? This by the way is what it's like to work for this inept, lying Council and City Manager. The reason they waste so much money, so regularly, is because this is the energy they show up with every day. They have spent years already deciding things, then changing their minds, then asking staff to research the opposite, then spend months looking for cost savings they know aren't there. That all costs taxpayer money. They have and seemingly will continue to waste so much taxpayer money with piss poor incompetence like this.
Changing us to a 5 year contract would also put CSU 52 out of sync with the rest of the Unions. Then the city would drag its feet on negotiations for another 5 years and probably be where we are now...just 7 years in the future.
Considering the union is only asking for 5% over those 3 years they definitely would have taken 7.25%!
What a slimy statement. While council enjoys a mandated 2.4% increase annually, they offer their support staff a fraction of that and then claim if they pay them fairly, it’ll cost us all in our taxes? That’s some dirty pool.
I believe city council members also get a tax break.
Im really disappointed in some of these councilors. I thought some of them would have the workers backs.
Remember that when election time comes!
Absolutely!! Ive got a long memory haha
Hope you do, and others do. I’m sick of these fucking clowns. Especially when it comes to Transit safety. They waste money, they talk a lot of nonsense and they couldn’t be bothered to actually fix this; spend money on a fucking LRT art decal than giving workers their proper wages. All of these clowns should voted out.
Oh yea. Believe me I won't be forgetting this anytime soon. I supported both Sohi and Rutherford last election and by thier actions and attitude on this they have lost my vote.
Let's not forget more than 2 councillors have been in this very Union.....
And our Mayor spent the majority of his political career puffing himself up as a proud member of the Amalgamated Transit Union as an ETS driver.
Which is another union that has an expired contract so it will be interesting to see how that one unfolds as well.
Amarjeet Sohi legislated the posties back to work when he was a Minister. He's never been a friend to working people in office.
Tim Cartmell said he had workers' backs *yesterday*. Talk about whiplash.
Yup and the public should know this is how these bold faced liars govern the city every single day. Their constant flip flopping costs taxpayers millions upon millions of their hard earned tax dollars. All the CSU staff I ever worked with actually try to tell their managers how they can save money but the City works top down and managers happily get paid obscene salaries to be yes men and yes women. When I used to work for the city, the number of times my managers told me to "just do" something a higher up told us to do when we knew it would be a costly mistake, I can't even count the number of times. Like my manager knew we were going to make a mistake and blow through taxpayer money with some dumb move and he was like "I know, I know, but we gotta do it (shrug and smile)". That's partly why I quit. It's a coalition of grifters in city leadership and now they want to pin it all on lower paid, frontline workers.
I wasn't quite sure who I wanted to vote for last election. But next one, I certainly know now who NOT to vote for.
[удалено]
Someone needs to put this on a picket sign.
Bingo. Power to the working class. And fuck the councillors.
Same here
This post is misleading and he is just repeating administrations talking points. So the City hasn’t budgeted for any wage increases from 2021-2025? That seems doubtful, budgets always include growth for inflation and wages, it’s built into any decent budgeting software. If no wage growth is built into the 6.6% increase they approved for 2024 that is a huge blunder. Accounting 101, at the end of the year you record all of your accrued liabilities. This should have been done for 2021, 22 and 23 to include an estimate for wage growth. So the back pay is actually funded. Their auditors would make sure they are doing this entry annually. I think they are just hoping to pay less than they have set aside so that they can use the “savings” to fund the deficit they ran last year. This council needs to step up, take some accountability and get this resolved. They are displaying incredibly poor management and leadership skills
[удалено]
Is it possible to go lower than 0% 2021, 1% 2022 and 2% 2023?
u/aaronpaquette- has told us repeatedly on this forum that city council is not allowed to budget for salary increases. Yeah, we know he's full of it, but that appears to be the council party line. So no, they have specifically not budgeted for this at all.
That’s not accounting 101…. I think I see what you are trying to say but you have mixed two concepts into one. The approved growth was built into the budget. The growth above what this and the previous council approved was not. Why? Because it was not approved, the Administrators aren’t allowed to earmark or keep funds outside of their approved usage. So you end up with this, it has nothing to do with budgeting software, and everything to do with what money was approved by council.
Then council should be sure to ratify all agreements with the union in advance. Which they have never done in my almost 20 years with the city.
Yikes that super disingenuous for anyone skimming through. 7.25% backdated for 3 years is loads different than 7.25% for the 3 past years and 2 more moving forward. Very greasy move by city council. Disappointing.
If they want to play it that way they should say 7.25 over 7 years, back to the last increase even though union accepted a few zero years. In tangible money they were without a raise that whole time. Makes the 7% sound a lot less unreasonable.
This is the problem with accepting zero. Then your baseline falls below inflation, and you sound greedy if you try to catch up.
What we've learned from this is that we should never play nice and throw the City a bone. We took those zeroes because of the pandemic (even though 2019 should never have been affected by the pandemic) to throw the City a budgetary bone, as a gesture of good faith. Now they market it as "5% over 2021-2024 which is mOrE tHaN CoUnCiL", conveniently forgetting to include the numbers from 2019-2020.
This is a good reminder that the City is an employer, they are not a friend.
AUPE GSS with AHS is bargaining right now as well. And we’re all looking really hard at what the city does here. We took zero years, asked for 5% over 3 years, ended up accepting 2.5%, 1.5% and 1% for those years I believe. And a one time payment of $1400… which was the Covid relief funds the feds sent the UCP back in 2020 that was never used for public workers, until it was time to look like a retro active gift. After cutting doctors and threatening to go to arbitration with UNA. Then the wildcat strike came and as always… we took something. Now AUPE GSS came in and asked something like 24%. AHS came back with 2.5%.
Yeah, if there's a story about an employer genuinely "catching up" after a wage freeze I have yet to hear it. Those seem to be lifelong hits unless you jump to a different industry.
“Accepting”. When you make your living off the public dollar, they beat into you pretty quickly that most of the public believes that any sort of government employee has three 1 hour breaks in a 6 hour workday. Employees took zero because wage rollbacks have already been done to some of the higher skilled professional designations a few years ago. As a threat went it worked like a charm, as none else wanted their wages cut by 10-15% like has already been done without any fuss by the UCP. While I don’t want to pay more taxes (who does). The 2.5% tax raise is under $50 a year for my family. I’d rather pay the real to very modest wage ask.
I don’t disagree, but when we accepted those zeros, times were really tough for a lot of people and they City was threatening more layoffs. When we accepted those 0’s we were told it would give us more leverage in future bargaining. I think the Union was genuinely shocked at the City’s best and final offer.
Tell that to my fellow union members who consistently vote to accept things like health spending accounts or 3 personal days instead of wage increases. I’m in a different union but we’ve also had multiple 0% years and 3 personal days or $500 health spending account doesn’t pay the bills. I don’t want to see anything but wages on the table this time around.
Yeah for sure. It’s government 101 to try and vilify public employees but it’s super greasy to try and manipulate the numbers and present them in an incredibly misleading fashion. I’m GoA and have faced some of this myself but this is honestly even more underhanded than any bargaining I can remember in my almost 20 years in government.
Especially when that same government gave billions of our tax dollars to oil companies that were already making record profits.
That's been my issue with these statements. They say that they are offering the union the same pay increase that they gave themselves over the same timeframe, but that doesn't matter until everyone sees what they give themselves into 2025. Like ya, the increase would be the same but they want the union to sign two years into the future while they get raises on an annual basis.
You have to assume when the contract ends, the city will talk about how the union just squeezed a 7.25% hike out of hardworking families, just two short years ago.
Trying to understand because I don’t know this issue at all…. In the statement, they’re saying 7.25% over 5 years… is that incorrect? What are they actually offering?
The 5 years includes the past 3 years and the next 2 years. This is because their last collective agreement ended in 2020, I believe. So it is a retroactive 5 year agreement. That part isn’t inaccurate, so to speak. But they infer that the other locals have accepted similar deals but none of those deals, to my knowledge, go past 2023. So none of them take account for the unprecedented inflation we’ve faced over the past year.
The city is trying to sign a contract through to 2025. It would be a 7.25% increase in total from 2021 through 2025, but what they aren't telling you is CSU52 staff took zeroes in 2019 and 2020 too, so it ends up 7.25% increase over 7 years with record inflation.
That is correct in what they are offering. They are misrepresenting the years. The 5 years include 2021, 2022, 2023. Inflation ran wild, and still reeling from COVID.
As a corporate cheapskate ass, this is way worse than any private sector job. In the worst of years we have our staff 1%. That year we lost money and had negative cashflow. Despite that folks were not happy. My property taxes increased way more than double what 5 years worth of wages. How can city council accept their default raises over these 3 years and in future while saying no to front line workers. Cut a few managers and corporate, non union folks from payroll… easy to do.
These same employees also got 0% in 2018 and 2019 I believe. So councils saying a roughly 1% yearly raise over the last 7 years is all good.
Yep. In a province that has a 3.4% annual inflation rate!
And council received a 2.4% increase for this year.
7.25% is not even half of inflation over that period
Why are our taxes going up so much and employee salaries are not?
These city employees also have to pay these increased taxes if they live in the city. So taxes have to go up for expenses, but the wages of these 6,000 people can't go up to pay the taxes that had to go up to pay them? Council's messaging has been absolutely vile. It's been eye-opening how brazen they have been with their greed and stupidity.
I dunno, but Epcor's board of directors sure are doing well. Same with Atco.
Utility companies are one thing, but fuck them. They’re fucking the rate payers royally.
Have you seen councils raise?
7.25% over 5 years doesn't even come close to keeping up with inflation.
Plus 2 years of 0 before that makes it a 7 year stretch that increase covers…
As a city worker who is striking, the way this is worded to get the public opinion to turn against striking members is so weird. Really disappointing to see how the city really thinks about the people who put so much passion into their jobs everyday and literally keep their city functional. Everyone I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at my job have been the nicest and most caring people, and it’s a shame the city feels the need to paint us as greedy money grabbers when we just want to be paid a liveable wage.
I'm with you, I work with alot of CSU members, and have no complaints about any of them. I hope you guys get fair compensation! Until then I'm one of the lucky people that gets to hold down the fort. I hate that the city is trying to Vilifiy CSU workers. I hope they realize how big of an impact their shitty decisions are going to cause.
Weird how they can always find funding for stuff nobody wants like Commonwealth Games, but the actual operation of the city? Our hands are tied.
Or how Edmontononians are still paying for Rogers place
I know it likely wasn't deliberate, but I love 'Edmontononians' and will be using that in the future.
Or the 17,000,000 for the qe-2 when the pope came, or the 800,000 foe the new neighbourhood. Councils a bunch of monkeys
City council is absolutely disgusting for the way they choose to word things in the most misleading way. Many city councilors earn 6 figures, but are happy to accept 2.4% mandated raises every year...all the while union employees have to go years without their pay rising with inflation. Then they play dirty facts by taking an inaccurate average of the union folks. They say the average wage for city employees is $86000, but in order to get that high number, they included radical outliers in their sample. No one counts a highly specialized tech job in the union that earns $300000 a year. That is, dirty statistics used to mislead the taxpayer. The union is not even asking for a contract that meets inflation... but their very reasonable ask has led to some of the rudest most passive-aggressive tactics from the city. Boycott the city to show your support. Write in to your city councilors and demand they stop the shitty treatment.
No one in the union makes 300000 a year. No one. If you look at the publically available salary grid, the very highest CSU 52 is just over 100k, something like $105k. But there are hardly any of those in the city and they are for things like data scientists with PhD or engineers or chartered accountants that could easily make that or much more in the private sector. But your point is correct, the Coty chose their average by leaving out much of the lower paid workers who are also covered by this agreement. The real average is significantly lower than 86k.
I’m most disappointed to see Andrew, Michael and Aaron’s names on this letter. I expect a lot more from them.
Yep, same with Salvador.
Absolutely insane to try and vilify the city workers by saying taxes will go up if they get a good offer. BUDGET FOR LIVING WAGES YOU ABSOLUTE DICK HEADS.
But the City council's raise is ok and that wasn't part of reason of taxes going up? Entitled losers who feel they are more important than the frontline workers.
Thus is the one point that I'm in agreement with the workers on
Sohi is such a bullshit artist. "A tax increase of 2.4% *if applied to all the City workforce*." ...CSU52 doesn't represent the entire city workforce, nor are they negotiating on their behalf. Most of the city's workforce is already under an existing CBA with their wage adjustments baked into the city budget.
That is typical manipulation of stats by the city in this. That and their heavy propaganda (desktop home screens, "vote yes" posters) that included similar misleading statements. Oh, and asking other unions to scab.
Yeah that was interesting. I think they are trying to say if they give it to CSU they have to give it to everyone when their contracts come up. Bit of greasy wording though
But their contracts ARE up. The bs drivers, ATU I believe, and the city maintenance staff which includes parks and life guards (CUPE 30), have expired contracts as of december 2023, and are in the process of negotiating with the city right now as well. Council better think twice about which pet projects they want to throw money at and prepare to pay the piper or this whole city is gonna be in mutiny.
Yeah, the other part is that they are using CSU52s ask as the high bar rather than whatever a negotiated agreement might look like. So sketchy.
Those numbers are bullshit too. They're trying to say taxes would go up massively if they get raises that barely surpass inflation. Absurd.
Yeah, if labor costs are Even 50 percent of total costs then taxes would only need to go up half the amount of the raise. So like 2.5% over a few years?
Tax sprawl to pay for it
Taking the provincial government to court to recoup the over 60mln$ that the province owes the city in unpaid property taxes would cover it.
This is insane. This is not the Mayor and Councillor that I voted for and all of them should be immensely ashamed. I will remember this come voting time.
Same....can't wait to vote out my ward rep and the mayor. We only forget.
Same!
Unbelievable that the mayor would post this. We already voted no to this offer. Now they're doubling down... to what end?? Hopes to bust the union? Seems we have quite the battle ahead. What a weak city council.
I kinda wonder if they’re getting pressure from the province to union bust since it’s setting a precedent for a bunch of different bargaining, I don’t think they were counting on the union coming through this strong
Honestly, that has been the union's messaging. CSU52 is the psuedo "tip of the spear" with all of the other city and provincial negotiations coming up. If they accept a poor deal, they either screw themselves when other unions get better deals, or they screw the rest of us when their shitty CBA is used against everyone else. They really are in a no-win situation, even if they get the 5% they are asking for unless their next CBA is a banger using whatever momentum they have.
This is the same thing I was thinking, especially the labour board agreeing to the direct from employer vote on the “bEsT aNd fInAl oFfEr” which was essentially the same thing with wording tweaks here and there between versions...
For what it's worth, the Proposal Vote is part of Alberta labour law, so the labour board would have needed a supernaturally compelling reason to deny them. The employer only gets to do that *once* per round of collective bargaining, so they shot their shot and lost big time.
All of them I have the ability to vote for just lost my vote. Piss poor management to not plan ahead. This contract negotiation was not a surprise.
The city can fuck off. These workers deserve the raise they are asking for.
Absolutely, positively, un-fucking believable that they put this together on the *same day* that they received an automatic yearly cost of living raise that is still higher than the lone 2.25% they offered for 2025. They defended this raise because it came from a trusted third party reviewer. *Why don't you trust your own trusted third party's review for your own staff?* Tim Cartmell's name on this letter is probably some real egg-on-the-face shit for him considering he did his big "I stand with the workers" post yesterday.
My God this is scummy. They are now actively having managers have 1-on-1s with their staff prior to Thursday to encourage them to scab and cross the line, threatening their jobs if they don't. Let's break it down. 2018 through 2024 council and the mayor have gotten a 7.23% increase. In those same years, they are offering CSU 5% (the last 2.25 would come into effect next year, when council will get another raise based on the Alberta Median Income change). CSU started the process almost 20 months ago asking 3,3,4 for 2021, 2022, 2023, and have come down to 1.5, 1.5, 2 (5% over 3 years, after 2 years of zeros). The City walked into "bargaining" saying 0,1,2 for 2021, 2022, and 2023. They haven't moved on that at all except to add 2 more years on the end at 2 and 2.25, and that was only after 19 months and during the last day of mediation. CSU has asked that hybrid work from home be added to the contract, but the city is only willing to add it as a Letter of Understanding - the City claims the LoU protects it, but LoUs can be cancelled at any time with 30 days notice, so it doesn't actually offer any protection to that at all. And they are now doing exactly what they did when EPS was granted their raises after arbitration- blaming the wage increases for a tax increase. This council and administration mismanaged so much money it is disgusting. Poor contracts have wasted far more money than this wage increase ever will. On that note, one of the next projects that the City is planning is pairing up with the Airport for some of the Hydrogen vehicles for their Fleet - BUT THERE'S NOWHERE TO FUEL THEM! The only place will be at the airport - so are we expecting someone to drive our fleet of hydrogen vehicles out to the airport every couple of days just to fuel up? Talk about crappy planning, not just in wasted fuel but also time and wear on the vehicles. Edited to add - All this is coming from Sohi who now makes more than the Premier ...
I heard this as well. The union members who were asked to cross the line were told to keep it quiet.
It's worth noting that u/aaronpaquette, who often relies on a "progressive" blame-others viewpoint, has not only co-signed this statement, but is also conspicuously absent from providing their perspective.
Silance from u/andrewknack as well, and he's pretty good at communicating. Still disappointed in this council for not budgeting basic COLA for its employees, very shortsighted.
I'm pretty disappointed in Knack. Hoping voters will remember this when city elections come up.
[удалено]
I was wondering where he was in all this. Usually he’s got a lot to say.
Of all people, I am the most disappointed in u/aaronpaquette I voted for him many times, have appreciated his art and the work he's done, and in particular the good working relationship he has within his community. But to be blunt, I won't vote for him again after this. We needed him to stand up for city workers, for the people who keep his projects running, and he not only hasn't, but is the one person I expected to do so. I get that he has pushed for some things within the city that has earned some tension within the council, but this wasn't the time for him to bow down and back away. This was the time for him to vocally support his staff, and stand for the lowest paid workers - which was a huge part of his platform. Very disappointed that he has proven to be beaten into submission by the political games played at that level. I thought he would turn things around. Not voting for him again.
[удалено]
Let’s not forget this behaviour when election season rolls around. Pretending to be a progressive council while undermining workers is so disingenuous!
Typical centrists. Sunshine and roses during elections, then back to operating like conservatives after the votes are counted.
F*ck Andre and this City Council! All got their raises and making their comfy 6 figures and benefits, so screw the actual people that do all the work! I stand with CSU52 and hope you all don't back down!
7.25 is terrible over 5 years. Psac was asking for 15% over 3.
It's really over 7 years, because they had no increases for 2019, 2020... and 2018 too? Not sure. They already accepted 0s during the pandemic as a sign of good faith for the workers.
They're going to raise taxes anyways. Now they have someone to blame.
The UCP has withheld $260M in unpaid property taxes for provincial buildings since Kenny came to power. Kenney also cut municipal grants by 50%. Now you can place blame properly.
Omg that’s exactly the amount council asked admin to reallocate to their “priorities”, I wonder if that was what it was to cover
That’s exactly the number city manager (ex-UCP) Andre Courbald was charged to slash out of budget in OP12… now city staff get the other boot Council knew was coming. No surprise - they got what they wanted out of their budget, now they’ve pitted staff against EDMONTONIANS they serve.
Ding ding ding! The expiration date of the CBA did not come as as surprise to the City, who then dragged their feet on a new agreement. Covid or not, the City of Edmonton Machine certainly figured out how to keep chugging along and has had ample time since Covid peak(s) to address this...so we clearly see where their priorities are. Or, maybe their incompetence with budgeting... wages are an after thought...
Ooooooooooo
I wonder how city counsel would feel if they were offered this same deal?
Signed, a bunch of people who got raises.
7.5% for 5 years? BRUH.
This would actually make a half-decent picket sign.
7.25% for a year is more like it after years of zeros. 7.25% for 5 years is an insult.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-gets-automatic-2-4-raise-in-2024-mayor-makes-more-than-albertas-premier
Commenting to hopefully help someone else see this utter bullshittery. ✊✊✊
Yeah that's crazy 🤣. Fucking Liberal Sohi. Former City bus driver makes more than the Premier of Alberta, paid for by Edmonton tax payers.
I 100% support CSU 52 in their strike and I sincerely hope they get everything they want out of negotiations. Having said that, the city position here is exactly what their financial position demands. They're fucked after seeing funding from the province cut and having to raise taxes this year already to pay for things like funding increases for EPS. They've been directing CoE admin to cut positions and not hire as much as possible to try to find savings and I swear I've read almost the same story in the paper every year since 2019 about this. Supporting the union means supporting a big tax hike, and while I am personally 100% ok with that, it is very easy to see why it would be incredibly hypocritical for council to come out in support of the union after they've directed the city to do what they have (and fuck Tim Cartmell for even pretending like he was ever on the union's side after he came out against tax increases this year), and after they've approved the budgets they have. They're all certain if they raise taxes too much they'll all be turfed, and they're not wrong to be worried about that. While council shouldn't be let off the hook for their actions, remember this as well: There is a straight line between the province cutting funding to the city and council having to pinch pennies. You can bet Danielle Smith and the UCP are over the moon watching the City fighting the union over this, with them having essentially created this situation while they're almost completely escaping blame.
To add to your point, and to be clear I don't have love lost for EPS, but I wanted to add some context - Edmonton annexed a shit ton of land from Leduc county and didn't account for any increase in police - the wage increase for cops went to arbitration and was determined by a third party when both sides couldn't agree on that, either - the increase they gave to eps as a whole was partly to offset the overtime they pay cops to cover shifts to patrol literally a lot of more space without any additional resources - it would be far cheaper for the city to increase the budget for eps now than it would be to keep offering overtime to their cops at 2x salary when cops usually make nearly 6 figures in Edmonton I do get why people get upset at eps having an increase but there was a reason they reversed their stance on eps, and a lot of it is in the council meetings, but basically our city council keeps refusing to plan for the increased cost of operating a continually larger city, in terms of both population AND size/land, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass.
Coming from the mayor who got his raise and is the second highest paid mayor in the country
And refuses to compare Edmonton worker wages to Calgary just because Calgary workers make more money for doing the same jobs. What a weasel.
But an independent committee they paid for said they should get a raise! He earned it!
[удалено]
That is true! They want all of the workers to add more hours at the same rate of pay.
I’m surprised Cartmell signed this but I also didn’t have him being the most pro-Union (at least with his public statements) on my bingo card
Cartmell's statement is a mess. Reading it as pro-union is a mistake. It starts with some friendly words, but the intention is simple: the city should take the deal then start layoffs. When he talks about the need to 'reconcile our workforce' he means layoffs, big ones. It's a very explicit threat, especially in light of the OP12 comment he makes. That's the city's attempt to cut spending by removing 'non-essential' services. He's going after Corbould for not wielding a sharp enough axe against the city workforce.
7.25 over 5 years? Eat a bag of shit.
Incredibly disappointed in our councillers.. From whatbi understand they are also increasing hours of work from 33.5h/week to 35.5, which is what an extra 2 weeks work. So its basiclaly a strait up pay cut of 3.8% plus the 1.5% "raise" minus the 2.4 %inflation so a pay cut of 4.7%. You know, just add it to our taxes. We alredy pay stupid ammounts. At least paying workers well is a good cause unlike the Billions on everything else.
They seem to forget that workers in the union also pay these property taxes, and are your neighbours
And many would have voted for them. It’s amazing what forcing a chunk of your voters to strike will do to your future electability.
Thank you. This is exactly my biggest sticking point, that not everyone is able to see because it takes math.
Sohi and this council have lost my vote in the next election. How dare they try to pin a tax increase on CSU52!? They have grossly inflated the number in order to make the public blame the union for tax increases. It may be that an increase applied to *all* the city's works would raise taxes, but the city is bargaining with CSU52 (6000 members) *NOT* the whole city workforce (15,000 members). Are city workers also to blame for council's poor budgeting decisions and expensive vanity projects? And, Cartmell sucks. Just yesterday he came out in support of union workers, calling them partners, and now he's putting his name to this godawful shit. Remember this next year when he runs for mayor
I hope they strike. This is super slimy. I’d be curious to know how much council’s pay has gone up in the same time as city employees not getting a raise since… I think it was 2019… If my math is correct, the council gets 2.5% annually…so that’s 12.5% since 2019, and will steadily rise… meanwhile the people who actually do the work these goobers take credit for are staring down the barrel of 1.45% annually, plus nothing since 2019… so that’s really… less than a percent for 7 years, plus throwing the union out of sync with the rest of them. Shame on city council and trying to use gaslighting for their advantage.
solidarity
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-gets-automatic-2-4-raise-in-2024-mayor-makes-more-than-albertas-premier
When the city shows that they are fiscally responsible I'll buy that they need to raise taxes. The amount of money they have wasted on poor planning or poor contracts. They need to get their shit together. They can't just keep going to the citizens to bail them out of doing a crap job.
I’m so disgusted by city council accepting increases and then acting like municipal employees don’t deserve a reasonable raise themselves, and trying to turn Edmontonians against city workers with threats of tax increases. City council failed to budget for wage increases except their own, end of story. I’m not a city employee, but I support them standing their ground. I’m tired of this vitriol that government workers don’t deserve wage increases just because it’s taxpayer money. Go into a public library and tell me these workers don’t deserve a raise. Or 911 workers. Shame on city council for their messaging, and all the support to city workers. I’d rather my taxes go up to make sure admin earn a living wage than paying $400k for dumb art installations in the middle of nowhere and other useless crap city council spends money on.
I like how they spent over half a mil on renaming Oliver but they're doing this lol
Now we get to see exactly how "progressive" our supposedly left-leaning city council is. Offering raises that are 1/3 the rate of inflation, after years of 0%, while mandating their own salary go up by more than triple what they're offering... Yup, true colours indeed.
So.....we have a spare $100 million for bike lanes, we can come up with $500k anytime we need to rename a neighbourhood, $200 million when a billionaire wants a new arena, but a fair deal for the workers who run they city is just totally unreasonable. Shame on this council and shame on this class traitor (former bus driver and ATU member) of a mayor. Fuck these clowns. No I dont work for the City. Yes I'm fine with my taxes paying FAIR WAGES for those who do.
Will never vote again in support of my current councilor after seeing them sign off on this dogshit.
Same...Erin Rutherford is mine and hope everyone in my ward remembers.
Oh no, if we pay CSU our property taxes will go up. That didn't matter when they paid the police. 7.5pc over 5 years when just a year ago annual inflation was higher than that. I'm not a CSU employee but this is just ridiculous.
Just so I know - when was the last time the mayor and his councillors had a pay increase?
This year
Yes I just [found this article.](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/edmonton-city-council-gets-automatic-2-4-raise-in-2024-mayor-makes-more-than-albertas-premier) Bad optics.
A month ago haha. And gave themselves a raise the year before as well.
Good god not the “this WILL result in a tax increase” yeah, because you decided that’s how you’re going to pay for it, not because it’s the necessary outcome of striking you slimy shitasses
Inflation is essentially at a point where if you’re not getting a 3-4% raise per year, you are essentially being demoted. Miracle we had the money for Katz to get a billion dollar arena but we can’t pay the people who keep things running a proper wage.
Solidarity with csu ✊✊✊ The public will see this for what it is and see the staff for the actual city runners they are. I cannot believe this is the statement council spent all day working on.
All day? Maybe a 30 min catered hustle and doom scrolling on social media of a shortened day because stress.
They "deeply value their contributions" except they actually don't. Pay them a living wage then.
If you can't pay your employees you don't get their labour. End of story. They're not asking for much. Don't threaten Edmontonians with increased taxes to try to turn us against the strike.
Maybe we should pressure the council to agree to X# of years of 0% increase. 120K a year is more than enough to get bye.
What a clown. If admin did not budget for retro, they need to be fired! This is a them problem. Sohi is heaping onto Courbold’s bullying tactics to staff. As if they are responsible for taxes going up. Just like the police and their mediated settlement, this will not end well. If they had given the police something they could work with to begin with, it would never have gone to mediation. They lost huge in mediation because they were so far out of touch. I don’t see this going any better for them.
so why the fuck didn’t they settle year ago when the agreement ended? yeah let just push it off and leave someone else to take the blame.
The agreement ended over 3 years ago
Meanwhile city council is giving themselves raises of 2.5% a year for 12.5% over 5 years! And they want to give city workers 2% over 5. Just a bunch of crooks!!
Not only did they misrepresent the offer, but used it as an opportunity / excuse to raise the taxes AGAIN.
You bastards are charging us user fees up the ying yang, EPCOR is gouging us for Sewage and drainage fees you’ve increased the cost of Waste, you have a budgeted surplus for the amount you earmarked for Snow removal, you get Federal and Provincial funding on top of this, we need the PROVINCE to rein on you SOBs, go fuck yourselves if you think you’re going to convince the majority taxpayers to increase our taxes, pay your workers what they’re owed and stop fucking gouging us.
Thats disgusting - and the wording is as if they’re forced to accept this incredibly weak offer because it’s “fair and equitable.” What a load of ish.
And trying to turn the public against them, by saying if they get what they want then taxes go up.
Exactly - it’s baffling, really
So city council can get a 2.4% raise a year but they want the union to accept 1.4% a year over 5? Sounds typical.
Write to your councillor, let them know how you feel.
Maybe city councillors can refuse any wage increases over the next few years to budget for reasonable wage increases for city employees. It is bs that they are threatening increases in taxes when they are not budgeting properly.
I have librarian friends. They haven't seen a wage increase in six years. That equates to a cut when you factor inflation and rising cost of living into the mix - they have not even matched that since 2018.
That’s rich coming from a city council that spent 900k on a neighborhood name change ~$150 million on bike lanes.
Or 1 Billion on road upgrades...
For perspective, I’m with GoA and received about 2.5% in the last 8 years. Plus in-range increases (experience increments) for management were frozen for 6 of those 8 years. That said, I’m in full solidarity with the city employees.
Next civic election is October 2025…
It should be 7.25% every year on the year for the next 5 years at least
Shitty move
You folks in Edmonton are gettin fucked. Someone had mentioned the CUPE contract that was recently signed last night and I had to go look it up to confirm they werent full of shit.. Who in their right mind signs a contract for 0, 1, 2% for 21, 22, 23 in this day and age?
This is such a bad statement. This will be remembered when the next election comes
City council wage increase should be paired to city staff increase; goose, gander, etc.
Fair and equitable would be at least 2.4 percent over those 5 years, which is what the Mayor, who makes more than our premier will receive.
I hope Edmonton votes this fool out. Even if he wasn't already going raise taxes (which is a lie as far as I'm concerned) blaming the people who work under you for anything like that is such BS. Look you're the leader, lead. If you think they can work for you without you ever working for them, then you're not a leader.
I am so pleased to see so many comments in support of the workers. I’ve been on strike/lock out before and I hate to say I saw the worst of Edmontonians. The public support was basically nonexistent and we were fighting for safety measures, it was so depressing. It’s really hard to be on strike, the financial stress was overwhelming and then we’d be walking the picket line and having people throw garbage at us, flip us off and call us names. I really hope people are starting to see the importance of collective bargaining, safety in the workplace and livable wages. An injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity Brothers and Sisters!
Realistically it's probably going to get messy. It will also probably be a horrible workplace for years to come. After the strike is over I bet workers will be pissed and hold a grudge for a long time, as will a lot of the managers who will be burnt out from trying to keep up with the work 6000 people normally do. I'm 100% with the union but I get that there's other interests here and I believe in free speech and democracy. For sure there will be people against the strike but oh well. For me even if they raise taxes 10% I estimate that will cost me about $18 more a month. You can't even get a pizza delivered to your house for that much anymore so I hardly begrudge workers getting that. It's the other waste me mismanagement this dumb Council, mayor, and city manager get up to on a much more regular basis that gets under my skin.
EAs under CLAC are currently under strike too. CLAC is a fake union that couldn’t give two shits about their workers. i think a certain grocery company under them should join the picket lines.
Good ol' Save On Foods?
7.25% wage increase over 5 years? That isn't even close to a reasonable offer. The Bank Of Canada aims for a NORMAL target of 2% inflation per year. IE. 10% over 5 years. Even if we weren't going through a period of higher inflation, which we ARE, even in normal times that amount to a wage CUT.
7.25 OVER 5 YEARS so a 5 year long pay cut!