Now voting! AHS Nursing Care members have a deal

Some of us get to sleep in on Saturdays. But not health care workers.

Licensed Practical Nurses are used to long and early shifts. Late shifts, too. So are Health Care Aides, who are just as used to grueling schedules. So are the thousands of other Nursing Care staff who keep Alberta’s health care system running.

The morning of Saturday, November 22 was like any Saturday in that regard. These AUPE members woke up early, threw on a warm jacket, and made their way to work, but there was, of course, something extraordinary about that Saturday morning at hospitals across the province.

These workers were prepared to strike.
 

Before the action could even get started, their show of strength forced Alberta Health Services to send a much-improved, last-minute offer.

Members are now voting on this tentative agreement, a deal that breaks new ground for all public sector employees, not just those working in health care.

“Nursing Care members have officially set the bar,” says Andrew Wilson, one of AUPE’s newly elected Vice-Presidents. “Our strike preparedness and tentative agreement are real, serious achievements that we can build upon for future negotiations.”

The Nursing Care negotiating team felt the gains in the employer’s last-minute offer needed to be put to a vote so that members could decide if it was sufficient to form our next collective agreement.

In fact, the deal includes some of the highest total wage increases we have ever secured, including a 23.81 per cent total wage increase for Licensed Practical Nurses and a 17.05 per cent total wage increase for Health Care Aides.

Here is what really tipped the scale: this tentative agreement includes significant market adjustments, 10 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively. But this is not an ordinary raise or lump sum. These adjustments are retroactive to April 1, 2024, when our last agreement expired.

That represents an immediate wage boost, plus a substantial retroactive payout for all hours worked since that date.

The gains in this agreement are the result of nearly 20 months of bargaining. The negotiating team worked long, tireless hours—often bringing their pajamas and an overnight bag to meetings—on behalf of their colleagues, all of whom deserve improved wages and working conditions.

Bargaining meetings do not tell the whole story, however. Months of planning and organizing prepared us for action, punctuated by our historic strike vote.

"The strike vote was so impressive,” says Wilson. “Ninety-eight per cent of voting members supported strike action. That is the kind of determination and resolve that makes our employers blink. That is what brings them back to the bargaining table.”

Wilson, who is an AHS General Support Services member hailing from Local 057 in Sundre, is excited for other health care workers to harness this momentum in their own rounds of bargaining.

“Very soon, it will be time for their General Support Services counterparts, as well as members working for Covenant Health and other employers, to show the same spirit and solidarity,” he says.