Manitoba nurses vote overwhelmingly in favour of a strike

Manitoba nurses voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action as hospitals struggle to keep up with the demand from patients amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With nearly 12,000 votes cast — the highest ever in the history the Manitoba Nurses Union — members voted in favour of the strike, with an average of 98 per cent support across the province's five health regions, the union stated in a news release Thursday.

Despite those results, union president Darlene Jackson hopes the province will agree to binding arbitration and avert the need for job action.

"We don't want job disruption. We think this is totally unnecessary, but we feel as if we've been painted into a corner by employers," Jackson said in an interview.

The nurses union has not been able to come to an agreement with the province, despite meeting more than 30 times with the government since October, the union said in its news release.

Their contract expired four years ago, and since then the cost of living has risen 7.9 per cent, the release said.

According to the union, the major sticking point in the negotiations has been the recruitment and retention of nurses, which has been made worse due to the pandemic.

Requests from the union to go to binding arbitration have been refused by the province, Jackson said.

Premier Brian Pallister, when asked on Thursday for his response to the strike vote, said the government will continue to negotiate, but not through the media.

He was also asked what contingency plans the government had to handle a strike, if it comes to that.

"It won't come to that, I don't believe. I don't think that the nurses want that to happen," Pallister said.

The government recently committed nearly $2 million in cash and scholarships as incentives for people to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Asked if that would have been better spent giving a raise to health-care workers instead, Pallister said Manitoba already spends more per capita than every other province in health care, education and social services.

The province plans to pass a bill this fall, making changes to the Labour Relations Amendment Act eliminating the requirement for binding arbitration after a 60-day dispute between a union and employer, which could result in strikes and lockouts lasting indefinitely.

The vote to strike comes as hospitals have been overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients needing care, and dozens of Manitoba patients have been flown to other provinces to make room. 

Although the vote does not necessarily mean that a strike will happen, the union now has permission from its members to call one.

If a strike happens, nurses will still continue to provide care to Manitoba patients. Instead, nurses would take job action on a rotating basis, refusing to carry out non-essential tasks such as answering phones or transcribing doctors' orders that day, Jackson said.

"I'm hoping that this government and these employers see that the best possible outcome here for patients, and for nurses, and for the health-care system, and for employers, is to go to interest arbitration," she said.

The union represents more than 12,000 nurses in the province.