Last week, United Nurses of Alberta published an update on their website regarding ongoing negotiations for a new contract with their employer group.
The group includes Alberta Health Services, Covenant Health, Lamon Health Care, and The Bethany Group (Camrose).
The bargaining team for the nurses starting meeting with the employers on 6 February, the met with them again last Wednesday and Thursday. During those meetings, the employers presented their first proposal for monetary items in a new 4-year contract.
Included in that proposal were the following wage increases:
| 1 April 2024 | 2.00% |
| 1 April 2025 | 2.00% |
| 1 April 2026 | 1.75% |
| 1 April 2027 | 1.75% |
Keep in mind that 1 April 2024 start date is tentative. Technically, they’re proposing either that date or the date the contract is ratified, whichever is later. So if it’s not ratified until October, that means the nurses will lose out on 6 months with the new wage.
This is a combined 7.5% increase, or 7.71%, technically, if we account for compound increases.
This is more than their current contract, which gave them less than 5% over the life of the contract.
On that note, let’s compare this contract with the previous 3 contracts:
| 2013-2014 | 0.00% |
| 2014-2015 | 2.00% |
| 2015-2016 | 2.25% |
| 2016-2017 | 3.00% |
| 2017-2018 | 0.00% |
| 2018-2019 | 0.00% |
| 2019-2020* | 0.00% |
| 2020-2021 | 0.00% |
| 2021-2022 | 1.00% |
| 2022-2023 | 1.25% |
| 2023-2024 | 2.00% |
| 2024–2025 | 2.00% |
| 2025–2026 | 2.00% |
| 2026–2027 | 1.75% |
| 2027–2028 | 1.75% |
* When the 2017 CBA was ratified during the NDP administration, it was supposed to be wage freezes in 2016–17 and 2017–18, with renegotiation in 2019-2020. AHS under the UCP proposed a 3% wage rollback for that final year and UNA proposed a 3% increase. The 0% listed in the above table was the result of arbitration.
Nurses saw no wage increases for the CBA negotiated during the NDP administration.
During the decade between 2013–2014 and 2023–2024, Alberta nurses saw an average wage increase of 1.05%, and a total increase of 11.5%. With these new increases, the average annual raise jumps to 1.27% and a combined rise of 19%, or 20.69% if we account for compound increases.
In April 2012, the consumer price index for Alberta was 127.0. This past December, the most recent data we have, it sat at 165.6. That’s an increase of 38.6, or 30.39%.
So, while wages for nurses did increase by 20.69% since April 2012 (or will have once the new contract, if ratified, expires in 2028), inflation during the same period increased by over 30%.
And remember, that’s just until this past December. We’re still missing January through March of this year for the current contract, plus the inflation we can undoubtedly expect to witness over the next 3 years.
That means that the gap of nearly 10 percentage points between wage increases and inflation will more than likely widen by the end of the new contract.
Even though this is the best proposal the nurses have received in years, they’re still playing catch up after 5 years of wage freezes and two years of less than 2%.
Not only that, but according the UNA, these increases will still leave Alberta nurses being $2 an hour behind their counterparts in Ontario and British Columbia.
So much for Alberta having the highest wages in the country.
The proposal from the employers included more than just wage increases.
For example, they proposed increasing the premium for preceptors—registered nurses or registered psychiatric nurses assigned to supervise, educate or evaluate students—from 65¢ an hour to $1 an hour.
They also proposed increasing the recruitment, retention, and relocation incentives for rural nurses in every year of the new contract.
In the current contract, the Rural Capacity Investment Fund allocates $5 million for recruitment and retention incentives and $2.5 million for relocation assistance. By the end of the new contract, those amounts will have grown to $5.849 million and $2.925 million, respectively.
The nurses’ bargaining team will back at the negotiations table with the employer group on the 5th, 6th, and 7th of March.
The current contract between nurses and the 4 employers expires at the end of next month.
UNA represents over 35,000 registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, and allied workers in Alberta.
Update (21 Feb 2024): And earlier version of this story had the annual average wage increases as 1.15% and 2.32%. An astute reader pointed out that these were slightly off, and I have corrected the article to reflect that.
9 replies on “Alberta nurses react to 7.5% raise proposal”
[…] Republished with permission from Alberta Worker […]
Did I miss the part where’s nurses are asking for a 25% raise? Poor form. We need more nurses, not giving a lot more money to the ones that are there. This prevents hiring of more nurses. That raise is way more than any other industry is getting plus they have excellent health care and retirement benefits
The article doesn’t state that nurses are asking for a 25% raise.
Who is going to train these new nurses when the current ones want to leave? It starts as an opening offer, last time it was started at 3% it was countered with -3%
What an embarrassment this province is to its healthcare workers. Unionized waste truck drivers make better money than nurses who had to pay their own way for their schooling and yearly for their licenses. Those that have ever needed their care and services appreciate all they do in our time of need. Apparently the government see healthcare workers as some sort of luxury instead of a necessity.
19% increase over 14 years is a slap in their faces.
Ridiculous.
Pretty sad when min wage for a federal government worker goes from $16/hrs to $19/hr or 18.75% while nurses and ALL health care workers get insured with less than half.. no wonder our health care is broken
And meanwhile over half the nurses in AB are not even recognized as direct-care nurses (LPNs) by the government, despite being a massive part of the workforce, so they aren’t represented by UNA. The wage gap gets even bigger in the AUPE.
I have read a couple of your articles, and as an Alberta RN – I APPRECIATE YOU!! I’ve been at this for 15 years and while I’m a top earner at this point in my career, I am struggling as a single person. Working short staffed plus working short waged = people taking overtime they cannot afford to take mentally and physically. Especially those of us in acute and critical care. We are exhausted, demoralized and many are quitting. Agency nurses making 80-300$ an hour to do the same job PROVE that AHS can not only afford a raise for us and for recruitment initiatives, but that it might save money in the long run. Agency nurses ought to be banned.
Thank you, Alexina, and I’m sorry you’ve been so disrespected for so long.