Western Canada's strong economy will spark more strikes in coming months, labour leaders and analysts predict.

Strong strike mandates in both Alberta and British Columbia's public and private sectors could be a harbinger of lengthy strikes and acrimonious labour relations.

B.C. coastal forest industry workers and Vancouver civic workers have already hit the picket lines, while strike votes by Calgary paramedics and oilsands construction workers in Alberta are turning up the heat.

Unions in several sectors contend wages in both provinces have not kept up with inflation and there is a desire to capitalize while times are good.

Gil McGowan

"All the ingredients are in place for a year or more of challenging labour relations," says Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan. "Today, it's the paramedics and the construction workers. Soon, it could be the teachers and members of the (Alberta) government civil service (whose contracts are coming up for renewal)."

McGowan says worker demands in Alberta are "natural and to be expected" after 20 years of dealing with provincial budget cutbacks and stagnant wages in both the public and private sectors. There is a huge pent-up demand among most Alberta workers for real increases to their standard of living, he adds.

For some workers, though, a strike vote means provincial intervention. The Alberta government recently declared a public emergency to prevent Calgary paramedics from walking off the job and sent them to binding arbitration.

On the construction front, McGowan says Alberta workers want to get as big a slice of the pie as they can before oilsands projects being built near Fort McMurray are complete between now and 2015.

Contending that employers have not rewarded employees after reaping record profits, McGowan says problems will persist at the bargaining table until employers realize that booms should benefit workers as well as companies and investors.

McGowan adds wage increases of two or three per cent "simply won't cut it" when Alberta's inflation rate is rising much higher. Any wage hike less than the rate of inflation is "essentially a rollback," he adds.

Strong economies in both provinces are being blamed for virtually all of the disputes. A notable exception is the West Coast forest industry strike of 7,000 workers, attributed in part to the controversial softwood lumber settlement between Canada and the U.S.

B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair says the disputes are symptomatic of a period in which wages did not match company profits.

"Overall, I think you're going to see (more labour disputes) because people are looking for ways to keep up," he says. "They want a share of the prosperity and to have a basic life."

Analysts have predicted Alberta and B.C. will power Canada's economic engine for the next few years.

Sinclair points to an ongoing highway maintenance strike, which began April 23, and upcoming negotiations involving Port of Vancouver truckers and retailers as other examples where the strong B.C. economy is causing labour tension.

"If you can't make it in the good times, and increase your wages in the good times, when do you?" he asks.

In one of the most expensive places in Canada to live, he's also calling for increases in the B.C. minimum wage of $6 per hour for new workers and $8 for others.

Sinclair says B.C. forest workers decided to picket because they received "a raw deal" four years ago when the collective agreement resulted in changes in work schedules away from the traditional five-day work week.

Two key outstanding issues are the contracting out of services as well as severance for workers after mills shut down in wake of mergers and acquisitions.

"It's a difficult one," he says. "Obviously, there are some problems in the forest industry ... This is about having a life when you work in forestry, so you're not working six days a week with three days off and then going back to work for six more."

Doug McArthur, a Simon Fraser University public policy analyst, says the current labour unrest in the West is typical of previous economic cycles. In other words, workers seek more when times are good.

"When you have these booms and busts or booms and then dips in the cycle, the boom times are, as you get further along in them, the times when you start getting real (labour) problems - particularly in the public sector," says McArthur. "The private sector is generally more flexible in being able to make moves, although in Alberta, the kind of moves they'd have to make is so great because of the boom."

He says the B.C. coastal forest strike was predictable after seven or eight years of substantial cutbacks, layoffs, shorter work periods and contracting out.

He notes the industry is "paying the price" for the softwood lumber deal, which is now coming back to haunt B.C.

"You've got forces coming together on both sides - the workers feeling a need, after a very long period of difficulty, for some stability and wanting to get recognized, and the companies under very severe financial pressure," he says. "So you've got the makings of a very difficult strike."

The solution, he says, is for companies to be prepared to offer greater job security and pull back on changes - "some of which have been really forced upon them by provincial policy" - particularly on non-wage issues.

McArthur also says Vancouver city hall made a "very big mistake" by tying the length of a civic worker contract to the 2010 Olympics, because the stance showed a lack of trust for workers in the wake of the province's deal with its employees.

The dispute demonstrates workers have not been able to capitalize on Vancouver's recent economic gains, spurred largely by private and public-sector construction projects, while housing prices have increased dramatically.

"You've had professional people, including senior managers in the city getting increases in wages," says McArthur. "Meanwhile, you've had ordinary workers really being subject over the years to a pretty restrictive and pretty high period of (economic) restraint and pressure for increased flexibility in terms of working conditions."

In Alberta, the oilsands labour strife is difficult because of the high costs and shortages of housing in the Fort McMurray area, McArthur says.

"There's no easy way for the (Alberta) government or the employers to resolve these issues," says McArthur. "Alberta hasn't had a tradition of high levels of conflict in labour relations, but the situation there is ripe for a level of conflict that they haven't seen before."

But Ken Thornicroft, a University of Victoria professor of law and labour relations, says the coastal forestry and Vancouver civic workers strike are just coincidental and "not reflective of some sort of labour uprising."

The B.C. coastal forestry strike stands alone because it reflects an ongoing need to restructure the industry and upgrade mills, he notes. A strong economy - in the form of a higher Canadian dollar - actually hurts the forest sector because many of its customers are outside the country.

There is not much incentive to reach an agreement because companies may lose money, or make little profit, once operations resume.

The Vancouver civic workers' strike, on the other hand, is more reflective of a strong economy.

"Generally speaking, when the economy is strong, you don't see lengthy labour disputes, because it's in both parties' interests to resolve the matter," says Thornicroft.

He predicts it will take months, rather than weeks, to settle the forestry dispute and predicts coastal forest workers - not employers - will have to soften their stance to get a deal done.

"It's just going to be a situation of economic surrender on the part of the employees," says Thornicroft.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)