September 2, 2025
Dear Residents and Businesses of Coaldale,
For the past year, the Town of Coaldale has worked in good faith with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) to reach a balanced collective agreement. During this time, the Town engaged in six sessions of in-person bargaining, participated in two intensive days of formal mediation, and presented three comprehensive offers. Every single one of those offers included meaningful wage increases, enhanced benefits, and additional staff supports - balanced by a few modest, common-sense rollbacks designed to keep the agreement both fair and sustainable.
Every single one of those offers was rejected by AUPE.
Then, on August 6, unionized staff voted 39-9 against the Town’s third and final comprehensive offer - an offer that we as a Council regarded as very fair, logical, and principled.
That offer included an average wage increase of 17% over four years, as well as:
• 12 paid sick day/year;
• 12 paid statutory holidays/year;
• 4 weeks of paid vacation after 2 years of service;
• 1 paid personal day /year;
• 5 paid parental leave days upon the birth or adoption of a child;
• a $1000 annual Health Spending Account;
• 100% employer funded health and dental benefits;
• participation in the LAPP defined benefit pension program;
• standby pay of $60 (weekday), $90 (weekend), and $125 (statutory holiday).
• 2.5X the normal hourly rate of pay on statutory holidays;
• a $3/hour shift differential for working evenings and weekends;
• a $250/year winter boot allowance;
• a $250/year safety boot allowance; and
• a 2% vacation pay boost for casual and seasonal employees (from 4% to 6%).
Again, this offer was balanced by a few modest, common-sense rollbacks including:
• that overtime rates move from double time (2X) to time-and-a-half (1.5X);
• that a partial payout of unused sick leave hours be discontinued, but that the annual number of sick days remain at 12;
• that call-outs (for on-call staff) be paid at 1.5X the regular rate of pay as opposed to 2X the rate of pay; and
• that the Group RRSP Program (1%) - a benefit not included in the previous Collective Agreement - be discontinued.
Unfortunately, what we as a Council regarded as a very fair, logical, and principled offer was, after the vote, publicly labeled by AUPE as “insultingly bad” leaving the Town and AUPE at an impasse.
Finally, on August 26, AUPE escalated this ongoing dispute further by applying to the Alberta Labour Relations Board for a strike vote.
If you’d like to see what AUPE considers 'insultingly bad' - and what unionized staff are apparently prepared to strike over - take a look at the wage tables by clicking on the button below.
Wage Tables for Comprehensive Offer #3
These tables show what various Town of Coaldale employees would have been paid, year over year, had the Town’s final offer been accepted.
Why Our Council Is Standing Firm
Coaldale’s residents and businesses fund every municipal salary, wage, and benefit. Council has a duty to protect those dollars and ensure services are delivered responsibly. Yet AUPE has consistently disregarded the private sector as a relevant stakeholder and comparator in our labour negotiations—even though it is the private sector, through taxes, that ultimately foots the bill for public-sector wages. Recognizing this reality is central to our Council’s unanimous stance on this matter, and it is why we are standing firm. As a Council, we directed our administrative staff to put together an offer that was fair to our valued employees while remaining sensitive to the interests of Coaldale taxpayers and businesses – and that is exactly what they did.
Coaldale Town Council will not waiver in its negotiating and decision-making principles, and we want residents to know exactly what those are:
We are standing up for the taxpayer. We recognize that dollars negotiated at the bargaining table come directly from the pockets of this community—particularly the private sector, which generates all of the wealth that funds public services in the first place. From the very beginning of the bargaining process, however, AUPE has acted as if the private sector is irrelevant, even though it ultimately foots the bill for their members’ salaries, wages, and benefits. Residents who work in similar positions in the private sector cannot and should not be asked to subsidize wage growth that leaps far beyond what they themselves are earning. To ask this of them would be unjust, insensitive, and tone-deaf to the realities faced by many of the people we represent and serve.
We are standing up for local businesses. While other municipalities may blindly peg their wage scales to each other in a never-ending cycle of public sector groupthink, we as a Council refuse to be shackled by that kind of short-sighted expedience. We direct our staff to study private-sector benchmarks so we can ground our decisions in the realities faced by businesses here at home – and in our region. Business owners in Coaldale and abroad already struggle to remain competitive, and they cannot afford to match inflated public-sector wages. It is reckless and irresponsible to pay $7–10 per hour more than local businesses for comparable work, not to mention provide employees with pensions and benefits that cost the Town 25% on top of their base wage. Just because some councils roll over under union pressure does not mean we are obliged to follow them into the abyss. We are not afraid to chart a different course—one that respects the broader business community, not just the loudest voices at the bargaining table.
We will not reward entitlement or intimidation tactics. AUPE has leaned on a tired playbook of public rallies, personal attacks, and misleading and deflective half-truths—all designed to pressure our Council into submission. We know that rewarding such behaviours will only guarantee that the same behaviours get rewarded in the future. Our Council will not dignify AUPE’s entitlement and manipulation with cowardly concessions.
We are leading by example. Few public-sector employers have had the courage to say “enough.” Well, this Council just did. Admittedly, we are not taking the easy road, but it is the necessary road. We are willing to endure potentially more work in the short-term, because we know the long-term financial health of Coaldale depends on leaders who refuse to fold under pressure. No, this is not convenient timing on the door step of an election. But at the end of the day, we were elected to serve the residents of this community, and we plan to work hard to the very end of our term, regardless of political consequences.
Moving Forward
Council values the work our employees perform, but our highest duty is to you—the residents and business owners who fund every municipal salary, wage, and benefit, through your taxes. That duty requires us to hold the line against demands which are inflated, unsustainable, unreasonable, and born of entitlement rather than fairness and gratitude.
Public-sector unions like to wrap themselves in the language of protecting workers and workers’ rights, but we believe their first allegiance is not to employees or communities—it is to themselves. AUPE’s strike-fund-war-chest of $100 million does not intimidate us, and busing in picketers from around the province to obstruct municipal operations during a strike won’t either.
In closing, our first allegiance is to the people of Coaldale. As a Council, we will continue to defend the interests of our constituents, safeguard the long-term stability of municipal services, be mindful of the private sector labour market, and ensure that every dollar entrusted to us is used responsibly. In standing firm, we are not only protecting today’s taxpayers, but also securing a future where Coaldale remains a community defined by fairness, sustainability, and accountability. And if that means relying more heavily on contractors, exempt employees, and employees who are willing to accept our terms of employment to maintain our service levels, then so be it.
