Last week and over the weekend, Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN), Health Care Aides and many other health care workers represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) at public facilities throughout the province voted 98 per cent in favour of striking if a collective agreement can’t be reached in mediation.
The vote result must still be certified by the Alberta Labour Relations Board, AUPE President Sandra Azocar told an Edmonton news conference called to announce the tally Wednesday.
“But they voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action because they are fed up with stagnant wages and unsafe working conditions that hurt workers, patients and Alberta’s public health care system,” Azocar said.
“We’re ready to get back to the bargaining table,” said Azocar, who was elected as the president of Alberta’s largest union on October 24. Meetings with a mediator are scheduled through to the end of the weekend, she told reporters, and AUPE can’t legally give 72 hours’ strike notice until November 17.
“Our members would rather do their jobs, but they are prepared to stand up for what they deserve and to take job action if necessary,” Azocar said.
More than 15,600 health care workers – also including rehabilitation care workers, mental health aides, psychiatric aides, physiotherapy assistants, operating room technicians and orthopedic technicians – would be impacted by the strike, which notwithstanding the existence of essential services agreements between the union and health care employers would have serious impacts on the operation of Alberta hospitals.
This puts Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) in an interesting and potentially perilous spot. UCP leaders have just discovered that using the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ Notwithstanding Clause to bludgeon striking teachers back to work and forcing them to accept a contract 90 per cent of the teachers had rejected in a ratification vote was not nearly as popular with voters as they seem to have imagined it would be.
Premier Danielle Smith has just returned from a Middle Eastern junket that appears to have been scheduled at least in part to keep her from having to debate Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi in the Legislature or answer too many questions about the government’s heavy-handed use of the Notwithstanding Clause to end the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) strike.
Smith told reporters that her government’s move against the ATA was “a very specific action we’re taking in this specific instance. … So I don’t think people should draw some sort of general application that this is the approach that we would take in every instance of labour action.”
Now, facing another very specific situation with a different union, against which the government would have to pass separate back-to-work legislation, Smith won’t reassure many voters outside the UCP base if her government goes and does it again.
Still, Finance Minister Nate Horner told reporters at the Legislature that he wasn’t about to rule out using the Notwithstanding Clause again.
“I’m hesitant to ever take anything totally off the table. It’s a tool that the government has,” he said.
True, but it’s a tool that may be proving dangerous to use, let alone overuse, what with petitions to recall UCP MLAs popping up all over Alberta, forcing the government to consider another embarrassing climbdown by repealing or amending its recall and petition laws, which not long ago it was heralding as a great leap forward in democratic practice. (Smith told the Legislature Wednesday the government hasn’t drafted recall legislation … yet.)
In response to questions from several journalists at the AUPE news conference, Azocar said AUPE refused to be intimidated by the government’s action against the teachers.
“Any time that we have governments that violate the most basic rights that we all have as workers, it’s always something that you have to consider,” she explained. “But I think this vote sends a very clear message.”
Both Azocar, and AUPE lead negotiator Kate Robinson warned that the sides remain far apart.
“The employer is offering 12 per cent over four years in terms of wage increase, and they even have some rollbacks on the table, specifically to wages,” Robinson said. “We are simply seeking wages that represent the work that is being done in the workplace by these health care workers.
“It’s been a long time without any wage increases that reflect the scope of practice for both our health care aides and LPNs,” she continued. “The government did settle with the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) earlier this year and gave them a significant wage increase, and that just puts our members even further behind.”
UNA represents mostly Registered Nurses (RN) and Registered Psychiatric Nurses, who are once again on average the highest paid nurses in Canada.
“For our proposal for LPNs, it is that they be paid 84 per cent of what an RN is paid, and that is consistent with their scope of practice and what they are allowed to do in the workplace,” Robinson said.
In Alberta, she added, LPNs are paid 67 per cent of an RN’s wage, while in Manitoba they are paid 81 per cent. Alberta LPNs “are in seventh place” nationally, she said, and only 12 per cent over four years will just widen that gap.
But Horner, who can direct the employers’ negotiations through legislation allowing to government to issue secret mandates to public-sector employers, rejected the AUPE bargaining position out of hand in a statement on the Alberta Government website.
After saying “we deeply value” the important work done by LPNs, Horner quickly pivoted to saying they’re asking for way too much.
“I encourage the union to reconsider its proposal and return to the bargaining table with an offer that is reasonable and fair,” he said.
After devoting about 325 words to making his case to the public, Horner concluded by saying, “out of respect for the bargaining process, I have no further comment at this time.”
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