It seems like half of Alberta is threatening to strike these days.
Education Support Workers striked for two months this past winter. They eventually forced the government to give them their first raise in ten years, with many school boards winning a twelve percent raise over four years.
Two weeks ago, government workers represented by the Alberta Union of Professional Employees passed a strike vote. The union and the provincial government are set to resume negotiations in June, but if they don’t come to an agreement before September the union will strike.
Teachers, too, validated a strike vote on May 27, with 99 percent of votes cast in favour of walking off the job. “Our unity is our power and our solidarity is our shield,” Alberta Teachers Association president Jason Schilling told a delegate of teachers in an address just prior to the vote.
Canada Post workers gave a strike notice to their employers on May 17. Negotiations have been ongoing so a full strike is yet to begin, but postal workers are refusing to work overtime. They are hoping this pressure tactic will push their employer to offer them a better deal and allow them to avoid a full strike.
Alberta’s uneven wealth
It’s no coincidence that four major groups of Alberta workers have or are planning to walk off the job at the same time. The average Albertan is struggling to keep up with increasing costs.
A bird’s eye view of Alberta’s finances shows the province to be incredibly wealthy. Alberta’s gross domestic product (GDP) is sizable, sitting at $71,639 per capita in 2024.
While it has declined $2,130 since 2022, it remains higher than our neighbours to the east and west. It sits much higher than the national average of just below $60,000. It’s also remained fairly steady over the years – in 2008, just before the financial crisis, Alberta’s GDP was $73,550 per capita.
GDP, however, “fails to capture the distribution of income across society,” according to the Harvard Business Review.
Billionaires versus Albertans
Alberta still has a lot of money, but much of this wealth hides in the pockets of the province’s wealthiest.
Alberta is home to seven billionaires, Daryl Katz, Fred and Ron Mannix, N. Murray Edwards, Ronald Southern, the Shaw family, the Riddel family, and David Werklund. Collectively, they had a net worth of $18 billion. Daryl Katz, owner of the Edmonton Oilers and Rogers Place, is Alberta’s wealthiest man. He is worth 5.84 billion
In contrast, the average Albertan’s net worth is $457,000.
For the sake of comparison, let’s calculate this gap between hardworking Albertans and the billionaire class using cows.
If the average Albertan’s net worth is enough to purchase a single cow, Daryl Katz could buy 12,822.
That’s enough to fill nearly every seat in Rogers Place with cows.
A season of strikes
Meanwhile, inflation in Alberta averaged 4 percent in the last five years, and spiked to 8.4 percent for a short period in early 2022. While inflation recently dipped below two percent, grocery prices rose 3.8 percent in April.
Since 2020, residential power costs have risen over 40 percent. In 2024, rent increased an average of 16 percent from 2023.
The cost of living has vastly outpaced salary increases. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few.
No wonder workers are demanding higher wages.
