Strike vote starts tomorrow for 16K nursing workers

Last week, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees published an update on their website regarding contract negotiations for nursing care workers in Alberta.

These workers include licensed practical nurses, health care aides, rehabilitation care workers, mental health aides, psychiatric aides, recreation aides. client care assistants, physiotherapy assistants, operating room technicians, orthopaedic technicians, and personal support coordinators.

According to the September 2025 Bargaining Update published by Alberta Mediation Services, there are 16,456 workers employed in so-called “auxiliary nursing care” with Alberta Health Services.

Since their last collective agreement expired in March 2024, over a year and a half ago, these workers have been waiting for a new agreement.

AUPE received feedback from their nursing care members in 2023 regarding what they wanted to see as priorities during bargaining.

The workers’ bargaining team, which include 5 members (and 5 alternates) from the bargaining unit and 2 resource staff from AUPE began negotiation in the spring of 2024.

In the April 2024 meetings, the workers’ bargaining team presented non-monetary items they wanted to negotiate. It is a common practice for negotiating parties to get non-monetary items out of the way before moving on to monetary items (such as wages), since the latter can be more contentious.

However, the AHS bargaining team apparently demanded that the workers’ bargaining team tell them which monetary items they really wanted and which they could do without. They would not move forward in negotiations without doing this.

The workers pushed back, and AHS finally conceded that prioritizing non-monetary issues was the best way forward. Unfortunately, they had not come to negotiations with non-monetary items prepared, so negotiations at that point was, well, pointless.

By the time bargaining on non-monetary items was complete, it was 2025. Negotiations on monetary items began in February 2025, nearly a year since their last contract expired.

At the next bargaining meetings—in April 2025—AHS walked away from the table. They had reached out to the workers’ bargaining team just 3 days before the scheduled meetings to demand a counterproposal.

In fact, they threatened to cancel the April meetings if the bargaining team did not present it.

The bargaining team for the workers showed up to the 7 April meeting with a revised proposal package, but according to them, AHS’s bargaining team claimed “they would never accept our proposals” and refused to even share them with their “decision makers”.

And they refused to move forward in negotiations unless the two parties moved immediately to formal mediation.

It is not uncommon for bargaining teams who cannot come to an agreement to first try informal mediation, so it is interesting that AHS wanted to move right to formal mediation, which is the last necessary step before they can legally lock out these health care workers.

The September Bargaining Update stated that mediation did not begin until last month.

AHS did not sign the essential services agreement—which is a necessary part of formal mediation—until July,

The workers’ bargaining team filed for mediation later that month, and the two parties had to wait until the labour relations board reviewed it before progressing to mediation.

Unfortunately, the two parties reached an impasse by the time they got to the mediation meetings earlier this month. As a result, the mediator ended formal mediation at the request of the workers’ bargaining team. The mediator did not provide a final recommendations report.

With formal mediation out of the way and an essential services agreement in place, AHS can move forward with locking out workers once the mandatory 14-day cooling off period has passed.

To protect workers from a lockout, the bargaining team has asked the workers to participate in a strike vote, which starts tomorrow and ends on 3 November. Voting takes place online, at AUPE’s headquarters, or at any of their regional offices.

On the topic of wages alone, check out what these workers have received from AHS in terms of wage increases over their last two collective agreements.

2017	0.00%
2018	0.00%
2019	0.00%
2020	0.00%
2021	1.00%
2022	1.25%
2023	2.00%

Over a 7-year period, their wages increased by 4.25%. That is just 0.61% per year, on average.

Meanwhile, inflation increased 29% during the same period. This means they ended up with a cut to real wages of almost 25% since 2017.

And that is not counting inflation last year or this year.

In addition to asking for raises to cover lost real wages due to inflation, the bargaining team for the workers asked this past April that LPN wages be increased to 84% of what is made by registered nurses, who are represented by the United Nurses of Alberta. If approved, this would reflect the recent increase in scope of practice for LPNs.

According to one LPN who reached out to The Alberta Worker, “LPNs”PNs are working to full-scope with barely any difference in scope of practice to our RN colleagues” in many, if not most, facilities across Alberta.

LPNs have had to increase their education and training in recent year, according to this LPN, after their employer and their licensing body “forced” the change upon them without any consultation.

Some LPNs are performing the exact same work as RNs, yet receiving $20 an hour less than those same RNs.

No wonder they are not backing down on what they asked for.

Update (5 November 2025): These workers voted 98% to strike, with 70.5% of eligible voters participating in the vote.