Bee-Clean janitors ratified a new city-wide collective agreement yesterday a day after their fellow union members working for GDI approved theirs. The nearly 100 cleaners, who work in the Halifax Regional Municipality, had been without a contract since the end of September. A tentative agreement was reached last week.
The goal is to raise standards for workers in the region with fair compensation including health benefits, respect, and the opportunity for a dignified retirement. Having equal collective agreements so that the janitorial companies cannot underbid each other on the backs of workers when looking to obtain new cleaning contracts, is a key element. By this method, SEIU has raised standards in the janitorial industry and helped improve the working lives of hundreds of thousands of cleaners in dozens of cities across Canada and the USA.
Unsurprisingly, Bee-Clean employees had expressed the same concerns their GDI counterparts did prior to negotiations. Primarily wages, lack of access to health benefits, increasing workloads, and retirement security. The cleaners’ new contract has significant gains, as well as many language improvements.
“There are a lot of nice little pieces that we didn’t have before,” said Adam Forrest, who has worked in the sector for over a decade, and with Bee-Clean since 2018.
Prior to the new agreement, most Bee-Clean janitors in the HRM were earning between $15.60 and $16.45 per hour. Just like the GDI agreement, hourly wages will go up immediately to between $16.10 and $17.20 retroactively to October 1, 2024. The pay rates depend on length of service. Workers get an additional $0.75 per hour in pay in a couple of months (April 1, 2025), and another $0.75 per hour on April 1, 2026. The contract expires on March 31, 2027.


“I’m happy with the wage increase,” said Carolyn Cogswell, who is 61 years old, and has been working for Bee-Clean for approximately fourteen months. “I’m at the lower rate, so I’m happy with it going up. I think we’re going into the right direction.”
Like the GDI agreement, the new contract has Me Too language which protects workers from unfair pay bias, and language that ensures workers wages go up in a calendar year by at least whatever the minimum wage increase is.
The previous agreement made workers wait until two years of service had been completed before being eligible for health benefits. The consensus amongst workers was that needed to change.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Forrest. “They were really restricting people from health benefits and it’s a physical job.”
The new deal has a reduction in the time of service needed to be eligible. Beginning in January 2026, eligibility is reduced to one year of service, and beginning in January 2027, employees will be eligible after completing probation. The employer will also be increasing their monthly contributions to the workers benefit plan.
Workloads were addressed with new language. It is also in the new GDI agreement, and it has been won by cleaners in other markers as well. While there is an understanding that workloads may change from time to time, the collective agreement now states: “there will be no unreasonable accretion of work to be performed without a commensurate adjustment in the paid time to perform it.”
Like GDI employees, Bee-Clean workers have also won a pension plan commencing in 2027.
“I’m happy with the pension because I think that’s important for people as they age, and they want to retire, that they’ll have something to fall back on,” said Carolyn. She believes there are numerous employees who wish they could retire but can’t because CPP and OAS are not enough.
“There are people that are older than me that would love to retire but can’t,” she said, “but there will be younger people coming in and they will definitely benefit from this.”
The new collective agreement has many other improvements including stronger and fairer language for job security, better winter jacket policy for outdoor work, improved premium pay, and more.
“It’s not an easy job at all,” said Carolyn. “From what I’ve told, they’re very happy with my work and that makes me feel good.”
Airport agreement also ratified
Members working for Bee-Clean at the airport also ratified their agreement last night. Most of the provisions are the same as the city-wide agreement, including the workload protection language, the pension plan, and retro pay dating back to October 1, 2024.
Like their city-wide counterparts the members at the airport will see three pay raises over the next 14 months totalling $2 per hour (and potentially more based on premiums and if the minimum wage provision kicks in). Employees with less than one year of service now earn $18.50 per hour (plus any applicable premiums), while those with at least 12 months of service now earn $19.15 (plus applicable premiums). On April 1, 2025, those rates increase to $19.25 and $19.90; on April 1, 2026, they increase to $20.00 and $20.65. Premium pay for lead hand and night shift have been increased to $0.75 and $0.85 respectively.
The dentures benefit has been increased to $2000 (lifetime) and there’s an additional paid personal day for those with five or more years of service.