St. Albert nurses say the court injunction granted to AUPE against a bill that delayed arbitration talks for thousands of Alberta union workers feels like a victory.
Orissa Shima, a nurse at the Sturgeon Hospital and president of the local union, said the original bill, Bill 9, was offensive to many nurses and discouraging.
Shima said the nurses negotiated and agreed to take no raises for two years, which was to be followed by wage negotiations being reopened. Shima said nurses knew opening the talks again didn’t necessarily mean they would get a raise, but they took the zero-per-cent increase knowing there would be some discussions.
“So to have the rug kind of pulled out from underneath us and to have those talks halted and actually breaching the collective agreement, I think it's a bit demoralizing for us as nurses,” Shima said.
Since the government introduced Bill 9, Shima said for many front-line nurses the trust between the government and employees has been broken.
“You expect them to follow their word and we're supposed to follow ours so it does just feel a bit disrespectful to us on the front lines,” Shima said.
Morinville-St. Albert UCP MLA Dale Nally said the government wants to assess its financial situation before negotiating with union workers.
“The NDP bankrupted us by putting us $65-billion in debt and we want to take a measured and methodical approach to building the next budget. And so that's why we just wanted to hit the pause button on all contract negotiations,” Nally said.
Court of Queen's Bench Justice Eric Macklin granted the injunction in favour of the 65,000 AUPE employees who were fighting back against a bill that would delay their wage negotiation talks until Oct. 30.
The UCP has filed an appeal of the decision.
St. Albert NDP MLA Marie Renaud said the NDP has been against the bill since the beginning and filibustered it when it came through the legislature
“These are people that we rely on every day, from maintenance workers to emergency responders to nurses ... so it's just bad faith. The judge told (the UCP) they were wrong and they refuse to listen,” Renaud said.
Wage negotiation talks are slated to run from Aug. 7 to 9.
