Alberta’s cost of living is soaring. AU can more than afford to ease the pressure on its staff with reasonable cost of living adjustments.
On Saturday, the CBC published an analysis piece about how the current inflation rate and global economic and political uncertainties have affected the cost of living in Alberta.
What won’t be surprising to AUFA members is the article’s conclusion that over the past six or seven years, prices for essentials like groceries, utilities, and rents have increased substantially. What also won’t be surprising to AUFA members is that over that same period, salaries and wages have stagnated.
What might be surprising is that for the past decade, AU has consistently run million-dollar surpluses annually even as it has offered AUFA members at the bargaining table cost-of-living increases nowhere near the rate of inflation.
The point is that AU has the money to ease AUFA members’ life costs but so far has refused to do so.
With that in mind, a brief analysis of the relationships between inflation, the rising cost-of-living, and the stagnation of salaries and wages seems especially salient, particularly as we move into a period of intense bargaining next month.
Inflation and the cost of living crisis
According to the CBC article, the overall cost-of-living in Alberta has over the past six years increased by 20%. But isolating for many of the essentials on which AUFA members rely, the cost of living has risen much higher than that.
Food costs, for example, have jumped 35% since 2018.
Shelter costs increased by nearly 40% over the same period.
And utilities costs grew by 15% between 2018 and 2025.
Put in context, a weekly grocery bill of $300 in 2018 costs more than $400 today. A $2000 rental unit in 2018 is closer to $2800 today. Mortgages have increased even more over the same period, in some cases rising by several hundred dollars per month. And a utility bill of $310 per month in 2018 is at least $50 more today.
On a per month basis, using the above numbers as a guide, an average Albertan today is paying at least $1700 more each month than they were in 2018. And that’s not even including other essentials, like childcare, fuel, insurance, property taxes, and savings.
These trends are likely to continue—as most everyone knows, the costs of things rarely go down, and will continue to result in difficult circumstances for AUFA members. In addition to facing higher costs, AUFA members must also stretch their wages further than ever, taking a toll on their mental health through the stresses of financial precarity.
Modest salary increases
AUFA consistently comes to the bargaining table with modest COLA asks. In 2017, for example, AUFA sought a 4% salary increase over two years. AU by contrast would agree to that increase, but only in exchange for the suspension of AUFA’s members’ merit increments for the life of the contract, as well as a $1000 cut to AUFA members’ professional development allowances.
For reference, annual merit increments in 2017 were running at about 2.6%, and AUFA members’ PD allowances were the same as they are today: $2000. In effect, then, for the period 2017 through 2019, AU’s offer was to cut AUFA members’ annual salaries by 1.2% AND cut our annual PD allowances by another $1000.
Recognizing that AU’s offer was unreasonable, an arbitrator ruled in AUFA’s favour and we secured that modest wage increase of 2% per year until 2019.
In 2019, AUFA agreed to better contract language in exchange for the next two years of zero salary increases. In part, AUFA recognized this as a developing provincial pattern at other bargaining tables, as well as to AU’s position that it had no money for salary increases.
In 2022, AUFA agreed to a 3.5% cost of living increase over the life of our last contract.
This means, of course, that AUFA members have secured a roughly 7.5% COLA increase over the past 8 years, or less than 1% per year. Meantime, as noted above, the Consumer Price Index has grown by at least 20% overall.
AU’s Financial Position
All of these numbers give rise to a new set of observations:
AUFA members are facing dramatically increasing costs of living
AU has over the course of the past 8 years offered AUFA members less than half of the modest Cost of Living Adjustment required just to match inflation
Can AU afford to match inflation (or at least come close) in order to ease the financial stresses facing its employees?
AU’s financial situation—a story of surpluses
Typically AU comes to the bargaining table insisting that there is no money for COLA increases. And yet, AU’s own financial reporting puts the lie to such assertions.
| Year | Revenues | Expenses | Annual Operating Surplus | Accumulated Operating Surpluses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | 148.5 | 134.2 | 14.3 | 31.6 |
| 2019/20 | 150.7 | 147.7 | 3.1 | 34.7 |
| 2020/21 | 159.1 | 157.5 | 1.6 | 36.3 |
| 2021/22 | 160.8 | 150.6 | 10.4 | 46.7 |
| 2022/23 | 155.5 | 152.5 | 3.3 | 50 |
| 2023/24 | 158.6 | 155.7 | 3.1 | 53.1 |
| 2024/25 | 170.4 | 158.6 | 6 | 59.1 |
The table shows that AU has run a surplus every year since fiscal 2018/19, and has an Accumulated Operating Surplus of $59.1M.
One annual operating surplus may well be a ‘one off.’ Two annual operating surpluses may well be coincidence. Seven annual operating surpluses in a row is a pattern.
Any argument that salary increases that at least come close to meeting the rising cost of living is unsustainable is difficult to fathom. Fair wages are absolutely essential to generate revenue (ie. tuition, innovation, mental health of staff) because AU’s workers are a necessary part of teaching and student support.