Alberta nurses to vote on new raise of up to 20%

In a statement published to their website earlier this week, the United Nurses of Alberta announced that they have reached another tentative agreement with several public sector employers in Alberta.

Their previous agreement expired about a year ago, in March 2024.

Negotiations for a new contract began the month before, but those discussions eventually broke down and the two parties went to informal mediation.

This past October, the UNA presented mediator recommendations to their more than 30,000 registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, and other allied health care workers for ratification.

However, nurses weren’t big fans of the 12% over 4 years, considering they were asking for 35% over just 2 years to make up for real wage cuts over more than a decade.

As a result, a majority of nurses who participated in the ratification at the end of that month voted to reject the proposal.

So, the nurses filed for formal mediation, and this new tentative agreement is a result.

The mediator recommends the same pay increases as during informal mediation:

1 April 2024	3%
1 April 2025	3%
1 April 2026	3%
1 April 2027	3%

Except, they’ve added bit more on top of that.

Before the first 3% increase is applied, the entire wage grid will be revised, which will work out to a 4% increase. Plus, upon ratification all registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses will be bumped up a step in the wage grid, which will functionally be another 4%.

So, everyone represented by this agreement can expect to see a 16% wage increase over the life of the agreement, and RNs and RPNs will get as high as 20%.

This is less than 35% they originally asked for but significantly higher than the 7.5% the employers originally wanted to impose on these workers.

The previous mediator recommendations included converting the $1.25 educational allowance and the 2$ RRSP/TFSA contribution into wages for some workers. That has been removed from the new recommendations.

Several pay premiums have also increased in this new tentative agreement.

	Old	New
On-call rate (hourly)	$3.30	$7.00
Responsibility allowance (hourly)	$2.00	$3.50
Charge pay (hourly)	$2.00	$3.50
Site administrator pay (hourly)	$3.00	$4.00
Temp assignment (hourly)	$2.00	$3.50
Preceptor pay (hourly)	$0.65	$2.00
Vehicle (monthly)	$130.00	$162.50

Plus, there will no longer be different on-call premiums for regular work days and rest or holidays.

Here are some other changes in the mediator recommendations.

New to the agreement is paid union leave for part-time workers, even if they conduct the business on an unscheduled day.

Also new to the agreement is that request to take accumulated overtime as time off must be approved or denied within 2 weeks.

Workers can now exchange on-call periods, or even portions of their on-call periods.

Travel reimbursement would increase from 50.5¢ to 55¢. As well, travel allowances for part-time and casual workers will now be calculated monthly, rather than quarterly.

Domestic violence leave used to be up to 10 unpaid days. Now, there’s no limit to the leave, but the first 5 shifts will be paid.

The following has been removed from the collective agreement:

Where the Employee requests within five (5) years of the Employee’s date of hire to have the Employee’s first year of employment recognized as pensionable service, the Employer shall facilitate such arrangements as may be necessary and shall pay the Employer’s portion of the contributions for the first year of service.

The following has been added to the collective agreement:

Requests for the Employer to conduct a psychological health and safety assessment for a specific work area/unit/program shall not be unreasonably denied. Upon receiving a request for completion of a psychological health and safety assessment, the Employer and the Union will meet, if needed, to discuss relevant factors including capacity, competing priorities, and timing.

Under the previous agreement, employers would reimburse $250 of the registration fees the workers have to pay every year to maintain active registration in their respective professional colleges. That has been changed to 100%. Plus, the full costs of professional liability insurance will also now be covered.

The meal allowance would increase for workers who must travel over 50 kilometres from their home site or normal work area for authorized work business.

	Old	New
Breakfast	$10.50	$13.00
Lunch	$13.00	$17.00
Supper	$24.00	$27.00

Massage therapy has been added to the list of prepaid benefits and will include $1000 per participant per year, with no per visit limit. Glucose monitors (1 every 2 years) and sensors (30 every year) will also now be covered.

Reimbursement for compression stockings has been removed from the agreement; although, as someone pointed out in the comments, there was a note that stated, “The previous items listed in LOU#18 RE: Prepaid Benefits have been included in the Benefit Plan.” While the compression stockings were removed from the agreement, they’re apparently still covered.

The Rural Capacity Investment Fund will increase from $7.5 million per year to $22.5 million per year and the UNA gets a say in how that money is allocated.

Workers will now be paid their applicable pay rate for attending Occupational Health and Safety Committee meetings.

If a worker experience a critical incident at work, they’ll be able to request downtime during the shift without loss of pay.

The UNA plans to hold town halls for its members this Saturday and next Tuesday to discuss the proposal. There will be a virtual reporting meeting of local representative on 25 March, during which, the negotiating committee will recommend holding a ratification vote on 2 April.

If all goes well, nurses could be voting on a potential new contract in less than a month.