Medicine Hat Public School Division headquarters pictured on March 12, 2025. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

EDUCATION

Medicine Hat public education support workers vote against labour deal

Mar 12, 2025 | 5:00 PM

Unionized education support workers and the Medicine Hat Public School Division will have to make their way back to the negotiating table after employees voted against ratifying a proposed deal.

Unofficial results posted by the Canadian Union of Public Employees on Wednesday show 79.1 per cent of Local 829 union members voted against an agreement that included a three per cent wage increase per year over a four-year period.

The vote, conducted by the Alberta Labour Relations Board at the request of the school district, was completed over the last two days. It was originally delayed after the local union’s executives were removed by the national CUPE leadership.

Public board Superintendent Tracey Hensel said it was important the support workers were heard.

“They’ve clearly spoke and so now we will need to find our way forward,” Hensel said.

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“We want to clearly understand what it is that they’re looking for in that deal. The deal that was offered to them was a 12 per cent over four years with other non-monetary offers on the table.”

Local 829 did not respond to a request for comment as of Wednesday evening.

CUPE communications representative Lou Arab, based in Calgary, said he doesn’t expect the negotiations to happen fast as both sides return to the table.

“I don’t expect it’s going to happen quickly because the provincial government has been very stubborn about forcing school districts to pay low wages and lower wages than our members are willing to accept,” Arab said.

He said the majority vote against the Medicine Hat deal parallels what’s happening with education support workers Alberta wide.

“What we saw here in Medicine Hat was an 80 per cent rejection of the government’s wage mandate,” Arab said.

“Across the province, we’ve seen CUPE members in numbers that big or bigger reject the wage mandate of the province. And in some cases, they’ve even gone so far as to strike, and strike for long periods of time for a better deal.”

Hensel, the superintendent, said the school board wants to make a deal before a strike vote would ever happen.

“Our goal would be to settle with our support workers and to keep a consistent, safe learning environment for everybody,” Hensel said.

“That’s our goal in the end. So we’ll work hard to get there.”