Feb. 12, 1988: Nurses end illegal strike
Nurses across the province were gearing up to return to work after union and hospital officials reached a tentative agreement to end an illegal 19-day strike.
Negotiators for the United Nurses of Alberta and the Alberta Hospital Association announced they had solved the sole outstanding issue of union-dues collection simply by dropping it.
Premier Don Getty said he had told hospitals minister Marv Moore to get the hospital association to resolve the dispute over union dues. The hospital association had demanded that it be allowed to stop deducting union dues from nurses’ paycheques for six months.
Union negotiators weren’t completely happy with the gains made in wages — an eight-per-cent raise over 27 months for most members — benefits and working conditions, but recommended the deal be put to a vote.
The next day, nurses voted 82 per cent in favour of returning to work. Those in Fort McMurray showed their displeasure by narrowly voting 73-53 for the new agreement.
The strike started Jan. 25 when more than 14,000 nurses at hospitals across the province walked out over government demands for rollbacks. It was the fourth strike by nurses represented by UNA and the first strike by nurses employed at the three Crown Hospitals — the Foothills Hospital, the Alberta Children’s Hospital and the Glenrose Hospital.
During the 1982 hospital strike, the government had removed the legal right of hospital nurses to strike.
As nurses began returning for their early shifts at the Royal Alexandra and Edmonton General hospitals, the University Hospital, which had held the fort for almost three weeks, temporarily closed its emergency department to ambulances to give exhausted staff a break. It resumed full operation after a few days.
Some nurses heading into the Royal Alex said they were disappointed that their concerns about working conditions remained unresolved.
They said they felt no ill will against colleagues who had crossed picket lines, but at least one Misericordia Hospital nurse said she was getting the cold shoulder from some nurses who had been very friendly before the strike.
The UNA ended up paying approximately $426,750 in fines for striking illegally.