Finance minister signals no pay increases for Alberta unions

Non-union Employees got the bad news the other day that they will not get raises again until at least 2019. So, 9 years without a raise!

The policy to not hire is also still in place, and there will be no training or travel until 2019.

The government hopes to save $30 million a month with this policy. But at what cost?

Tough times and without an endless supply of money, tough measures to keep the budget in line.

well I work in the energy industry (E&P) company and I have not had a raise for 5 years. 2018 will be the first year in that time frame where there is a dedicated budget $1000 per employee 'training' budget that can be used for formal training / conferences etc. So this increased belt tightening seems to be pretty standard across most sectors. As a sub surface geo-scientist it's pretty critical to keep up with the latest industry efforts in new technology, etc. So I guess the corporate decision was to forgo any wage increases to use some G&A money for technical development. Better than it has been!

Tough times and without an endless supply of money, tough measures to keep the budget in line.

Makes me glad I'm not them! Some of my colleagues are pretty pissed off, because they have been doing jobs they aren't classified for, because of vacancies, and just got absorbed into the Service Alberta collective without their job classification being bumped to reflect their responsibilities. So, they missed out on continuing being team leads, etc., and have to work their way back up.

Getting bumps in classification has been the only way to get a raise since Stelmach initiated the hiring and wage freeze.