Town rebukes AUPE, workers locked out

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Sunny South News

By Cal Braid
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

With both sides digging their heels in, Coaldale’s unionized employees were locked out effective Sept. 6 at 4 p.m. Approximately 53 union members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) prepared their picket lines the same day at 3:30 p.m. outside of the Shift Community Recreation Centre.

 The AUPE said a lockout differs from a strike in a key way: instead of workers using their collective power to leverage their employer by striking, a lockout occurs when an employer stops its staff from working.

 AUPE VP Curtis Jackson went on the offensive in a press release last Wednesday, saying, “These politicians must have short memories. The mayor and councillors awarded themselves huge salary increases in 2022, but are now publicly attacking their own staff in the press and on social media.”

 “When citizens of Coaldale vote this October, they should bear in mind that the council voted to raise the mayor’s salary by 42.01 per cent and to boost their own salaries by 31.71 per cent.”

 Jackson said the Town spends far more on management and out-of-scope senior staff than other comparable municipalities. He minced no words, saying, “The CAO makes more than $240,000 a year and has built an oversized management team around him. With such a buffer between himself and the employees who actually keep the town running, it’s no wonder he’s out of touch with the workforce.”

 Jackson offered some startling numbers: Coaldale spends nearly $3 million every year on 29 senior staff, while their front-line workforce numbers only 43. In comparison, the City of Lethbridge has 29 out-of-scope staff and 900 permanent workers.

 “There’s plenty of money for them, but precious little for the people who provide critical services for the people of the town,” he said. “Where was their concern for town finances when the council voted themselves huge raises and oversaw an extremely top-heavy workforce?”

 He said the Town’s public misdirection and failure to bargain led to the vote in which employees voted 83 per cent in favour of striking last Tuesday.

 But not so fast. The Town of Coaldale responded swiftly and critically to Jackson’s accusations. Town CAO Kalen Hastings issued his own press release on Friday. He cut to the chase, saying that the AUPE press release “grossly misrepresents the Town of Coaldale’s financial management.”

 He said only one of two possibilities could be true: “either AUPE’s staff are financially illiterate and cannot read a municipal financial statement, or they are deliberately misleading residents.”

 He went on to dispel the AUPE ‘myths’ that Jackson had perpetrated. Excerpts are as follows:

 Myth #1: The Town has $157 million in reserves. Hastings said the claim is false: “The $157 million figure represents the total value of the Town’s physical assets — roads, sewer lines, water pipes, sidewalks, storm ponds, and facilities — not liquid cash. To portray them as ‘reserves’ available for spending is either careless or deliberately deceptive.”

 “Is AUPE suggesting the Town sell off its sewer system and roads at a local garage sale to fund wage hikes?” he asked.

 Myth #2: The Town has 26 managers for 43 unionized staff. Hastings said AUPE’s framing is inaccurate because not every exempt employee at the Town is a manager. Exempt (out-of-scope) employees include directors, managers, and the CAO, along with technical professionals such as planners, engineers, and accountants who are legally precluded from union membership under the Labour Code. Just 15 of Coaldale’s 26 exempt staff carry some supervisory responsibilities.

 Also misleading is the fact that many of the Town’s frontline services are provided through contractors and regional partnerships. Those include RCMP, waste collection, paid-on-call fire services, water treatment, IT, and dispatch.

 “These services involve dozens of frontline workers who do not appear in Coaldale’s unionized staff count, because they are not technically Town employees. Comparing 26 managers to 43 union staff without this context is not only arbitrary, but again, deceptive,” Hastings said.

 He scoffed at the AUPE’s comparison of the ratio between union and non-union staff in the Lethbridge and Coaldale municipalities, calling it “laughable.” He said Lethbridge has nearly five times as many out-of-scope staff as AUPE alleges.

 Myth #3:  Hastings addressed the AUPE’s “distorted” compensation reporting. “First, permanent frontline unionized employees at the Town earn an average of $70,800 annually, well above the $54,095 figure alleged by AUPE.”

 He said the number appears to have been artificially lowered by including seasonal staff. The average salary for Coaldale’s non-union employees is $114,000 — not $122,000 as claimed.

 Additionally, “when discussing CAO compensation, AUPE simply cherry-picked the stats.” He attached a chart showing that the CAO (Hastings) has the second-lowest base salary and the third-lowest total compensation among comparable municipalities in Alberta.

 Hastings said that the Town’s 2024 comparative analysis actually showed that Coaldale operates with the “leanest cost structure of its peers.” He said that in 2024, the Town spent $737 per resident on salaries, wages, and benefits — 36 per cent below the average of similar municipalities.

 “Each year, the Town produces this analysis specifically so Town residents and other stakeholders can compare how Coaldale is performing relative to similarly-sized and neighbouring municipalities,” he said.

 “The numbers contained in these reports simply do not lie…what cannot be accepted are distortions designed to pressure council into approving unsustainable wage increases.”

 “Numbers without context are meaningless, and AUPE’s attempt to weaponize them does a disservice to residents,” he concluded.