Through collective bargaining, your union works to secure better wages for all members of the bargaining unit. The goal is to achieve salary gains that outpace, or, at a minimum, keep up with the rising costs of living. Negotiations also focus on ensuring that wages remain comparable to those of workers in comparator employment groups where workers have a similar level of skills and responsibilities.
If your wages are not increasing at the same rate as inflation, then you are actually losing money from year to year. This also means that if you receive a raise that just keeps pace with inflation, then it’s not a real raise – you’re treading water. You can determine whether your wages match inflation by using the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator tool. It demonstrates how your purchasing power changes from year to year using the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation using the market prices of commonly purchased goods and services.
Find out how your wage has fared against inflation over time. To do this, you can look at your salary from previous years (check your collective agreement to find the correct comparison by level and step!) and compare it to a more recent year in the inflation calculator.
