Alberta nurses reach tentative 4-year agreement with province

The union that represents more than 30,000 nurses in Alberta has reached a four-year tentative agreement with the province after six weeks of formal mediation.

The United Nurses of Alberta says the agreement will significantly improve wages, including an immediate hike of about 15 per cent for registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses.

President of the United Nurses of Alberta Heather Smith said she is optimistic about the revised agreement, after more than a year of bargaining. 

"There are very important elements that we think address retention and recruitment and stabilized entry of young nurses," she said.

"This round of bargaining has been all about the three R's. First and foremost, respect, secondly, retention and recruitment. We think that this tentative agreement ticks off all of those boxes." 

Formal mediation began in January after workers voted in October 2024 to reject recommendations that had been reached through informal mediation. 

The union says the tentative agreement also covers issues like staffing shortages, rural health care and job security amid the government's restructuring of public health care. According to the UNA, the government has agreed to provide an additional $22.5 million per year to recruit and retain nurses in rural Alberta.

Much needed for overworked nurses 

Smith said the agreement could provide some much needed relief on a strained health-care system. 

"The issues around short staffing, understaffing, overcapacity are plagues within the health-care system, primarily because of the starvation of resources that our health-care system, our public health-care system has been experiencing," she said. 

Kathy Howe, executive director of the Alberta Association of Nurses, said recruitment and retention problems mean that other nurses are often forced to pick up more shifts than they have capacity.

A report from the Montreal Economic Institute from September found that 47.7 per cent of nurses under 35 were quitting their jobs in Alberta. 

The proposed agreement would require that employers hire 1,000 new nursing graduates per year.

"I think nurses who are working under this agreement should have a lot of hope for the future," she said. "I think it will help … take one of those stressful elements off their plate. Nurses, nurses need that. They deserve it."

Smith says the tentative agreement isn't perfect, and more can still be done to address issues in the workplace. 

"This contract alone is not going to address the issues that make the workplaces unsatisfactory. That's a much bigger piece of work," said Smith. 

"There are some enhanced tools in this tentative agreement. But we're just hoping that we have some stability and we have respect, that we have the ability to recruit and retain and hopefully the ability to rebuild our health-care system."

The UNA's negotiating committee is recommending members ratify the agreement. A vote will be held on April 2.

Finance Minister Nate Horner says the proposed deal recognizes nurses' hard work and dedication as well as the value they bring to Alberta's health-care system.