Alberta

United Nurses of Alberta Holds Actions Across Alberta

- Peggy Askin -

Calgary, February 13, 2020

From the Peace Country in the north to Bow Island in the south, United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) organized more than 33 information walks in 25 communities at health care work sites and MLAs' offices across the province on February 13. Nurses were joined by their co-workers from the Alberta Union of Public Employees (AUPE), the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Active and retired workers from many sectors joined the nurses and other health care workers, including railway workers, steelworkers, and school board workers. Together they delivered a strong message, "Forward Together," No! to rollbacks, wages freezes and cuts, and No! to privatization. The workers made it clear that they are united in fighting against the Kenney agenda of wrecking health care and handing over even more of the health system to control by private interests.

February 13 was the 32nd anniversary of the end of the 19-day strike of Alberta nurses in 1988, in which nurses resisted demands for huge rollbacks and concessions from the Alberta government, defied every injunction and back to work order, and returned to work with their contract intact. The anniversary was marked with information walks and events in Bonnyville, Bow Island, Calgary, Camrose, Drayton Valley, Edmonton, Edson, Fairview, Fort McMurray, High River, Hinton, Jasper, Lac La Biche, Leduc, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Olds, Oyen, Peace River, Red Deer, St. Albert, Spirit River, Stony Plain, Vegreville, and Vermilion.

Speaking at the picket at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, UNA Secretary-Treasurer Karen Craik said they were there to let the Alberta government know that "Health care workers like nurses are the heart of Alberta's health care system...and that the cuts to health care will hurt safe patient care in Alberta." "Don't let the government take the heart out of health care," she said.

Collective agreements for health care and government services workers expire March 31 and nurses and other health care workers and provincial government workers are facing outrageous demands from the government to cut wages and premiums and deteriorate working conditions at a time when the existing conditions are unsustainable. At the end of the four-year contract, the workers would have received zero wage increases for seven years, a cut in real wages of at least 15 per cent based on the average rates of inflation.

Nurses have been threatened with the loss of an "estimated" 500 full-time equivalent registered nursing jobs over the next three years, affecting about 750 nurses. AUPE members are threatened with contracting out of up to 3,000 jobs in hospital laundries, food services and environmental services. HSAA has been told the government is looking for private monopolies to take over public medical lab services.

But the government's plan to hold "negotiations" with loaded guns pointed at the workers is not succeeding. All the negotiating committees for government services and health care have given a resounding No! to the vicious attacks on the wages, benefits and working conditions contained in the proposals tabled by the provincial government and Alberta Health Services. They have answered with one voice that they will stand together in defence of the right to health care and the rights of the staff who deliver care and services. This blatant attempt to steal from the workers even more of the added value they create, and to degrade services in order to fill the coffers of the global health care monopolies and other parasites must not stand!