For immediate release: Sunday, June 13, 2004

LETHBRIDGE — Members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees employed by the University of Lethbridge will see their pay increase by 3.75 per cent after voting Friday to ratify a wage-reopener agreement.

Members of AUPE Local 053, which represents approximately 400 non-academic employees of the southern Alberta university, voted throughout the day Friday at their worksites on the tentative agreement reached by union and employer negotiators on June 1.

Employees of the university who are now paid above range will receive a one-time lump-sum payment of 3.75 per cent of their current salary, said AUPE Union Representative Dale Perry, who led the union bargaining team.

“The members would like to have received recognition of their increased work load during the wage re-opener, however, given the economic picture painted by the university and other recent settlements we feel the offer is fair,” Perry said.

In 2002, AUPE and the University of Lethbridge signed a three-year collective agreement with the wage-reopener provision in the last year of the contract.

In a wage-reopener, the employer and union agree to negotiate a wage increase in the last year of a contract while all other contract provisions remain in place.

For more information, contact:
Dan MacLennan, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-232-8392 (cellular phone)
Dale Perry, Union Representative, AUPE (Southern Alberta Regional Office, Lethbridge), 403-329-1294 or 403-308-4549 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)