AUPE members at Northern Lakes College ratify new collective agreement
SLAVE LAKE – Members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees who work at Northern Lakes College today ratified a new three-year collective agreement that includes across-the-board pay increases of at least 12.4 per cent over the life of the contract.
Voting by members of AUPE Local 071/009 took place at the college’s main campus in Slave Lake, about 250 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
Some of the college’s approximately 100 support employees will see their paycheques increase by almost 20 per cent, noted union Staff Negotiator Brian Randall, who led the union’s bargaining committee.
“One of our goals in these negotiations was to get significant pay increases for our members at the bottom end of the college’s pay scale, and we were able to succeed at this objective,” said Randall. “For its part, the college faced a pressing need to take these workers into consideration because like many employers in this area they are now competing with the energy sector for workers.”
Under the agreement ratified today, all employees represented by AUPE will receive pay increases of 4.3 per cent in the first year of the agreement, 4.1 per cent in the second year and 4 per cent in the third year, Randall said.
In addition, approximately 16 employees will receive another 2 per cent in the agreement’s first year as the result of a change to contract provision related to employees’ level of education, Randall said.
In the second year, he added, all employees with a salary lower than $35,000 per year will receive an additional $150 per month on the grid on their paycheques – an increase of about 9 per cent in base salary that year for eligible employees.
Randall said the agreement also includes improvements in vacation and sick leave provisions.
A tentative agreement between AUPE and the college was signed Tuesday evening.
Northern Lakes College operates from 26 communities in north-central Alberta.
For more information, contact:
Dan MacLennan, President, AUPE, 780-930-3301 or 780-910-8392 (cellular phone)
Brian Randall, Union Representative, AUPE, (Peace River Regional Office), 780-624-7677 or 780-618-8214 (cellular phone)
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)