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1988
Hospital Strike
By January of 1988, the employers were clearly unprepared to withdraw their rollback proposals from the table. The UNA negotiating committee received the employers’ final offer and called a reporting meeting with the membership.
On January 5, 1988, the UNA negotiating committee presented its report to the membership at a reporting meeting in Calgary. The membership perceived that the negotiators had agreed to a provision dealing with short and long term disability and Workers’ Compensation, which looked like a takeaway. They strongly directed the negotiators to return to the table and inform the employers that this provision was not agreeable to UNA members and no Memorandum of Settlement containing such wording would ever be ratified. The members at the reporting meeting reiterated UNA’s long-held position that this Union accepts no rollbacks, no concessions, no regressions, and no takeaways. A date for a vote on the employers’ last offer was set for January 22, with the ballot to read: “Are you willing to go on strike for an
improved offer?”.
The negotiating committee met with the AHA and the RAH and informed them of the members’ position. The employers went to the LRB and charged UNA with bargaining in bad faith, a charge the LRB later dismissed. At the same time they asked that the LRB find that UNA was in breach of the labour legislation for asking members to vote on whether they were prepared to go on strike for an improved offer. The employers argued that such wording constituted a threat of strike, an act prohibited by law.
LRB Denied Nurses’ Right to Vote
At 0300 hours on the morning of January 22, 1988, the LRB handed down a ruling stating that the wording on UNA’s ballot constituted a threat to strike and ordered UNA not to proceed with the vote.
At 0700 hours on January 22, 1988, UNA hospital Locals conducted the vote on the employers’ last offer, with the ballot reading: “Are you willing to go on strike for an improved offer?”. UNA received a strong positive vote. The outcome of the vote was conveyed to the employers, and they were served with notice of a strike to commence at 0730 hours on January 25, 1988.
Illegal Strike Commenced
At 0730 hours on January 25, 1988, the strike commenced in ninety-eight (98) Alberta hospitals affecting 14,000 nurses. In prior hospital strikes, the three Crown Hospitals (Foothills, Glenrose, and Alberta Children’s) had never been called out on strike because under PSERA the nurses did not have the legal right to strike. Now no hospital nurses had the legal right to strike, and all hospital nurses were called out on strike, including the three Crown hospital sites.
The employers went back to the LRB and charged UNA with causing a strike. The LRB heard the charges on January 25, 1988, and determined that UNA had indeed caused a strike. It ordered a cease and desist order, and then filed both of its rulings on “threatening to strike” and “causing a strike” with the Courts. This process of filing LRB orders with the Courts, where they were automatically stamped as court orders, opened the way for later charges of contempt of Court. This automatic process suggested that the courts were extensions of the government, with no power to review orders or directives. This was to become an issue when UNA appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1991.
Dues Collection Ceased
As early as January 25, 1988, some employers applied to the LRB for the right to cease the collection of union dues for six months—a request granted by the LRB.
Unions from across Canada began sending telegrams and letters of support, followed shortly with cheques. Mr. Dave Werlin, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, supported the striking nurses and promised that “Alberta workers would not let UNA go under financially”.
Injunction Against Picketing
On January 26, 1988, a permanent court injunction against picketing at the three Crown hospitals was granted by the Courts. Over 1,000 nurses responded by picketing those hospitals.
Civil Contempt
On January 27, 1988, individual nurses began to be served with civil contempt of Court charges. By the end of the strike over 75 such individual charges would be laid and heard.
Criminal Contempt
On January 27, 1988, the government of Alberta, through the acting Attorney General, Elaine McCoy, charged UNA with criminal contempt of Court. On the same day a mediator, Mr. Wes Pangrass, was appointed by the Minister of Labour. UNA’s policy of opposing third party intervention resulted in the government-appointed mediator being rejected by UNA. UNA requested an “independent facilitator” with some real power to influence the government funders.
Fines
On January 29, 1988, UNA was served with notice to appear at a criminal contempt hearing on February 1. Hearings on this matter took three days. The government of Alberta requested a $1,000,000 fine and sequestrations of the Union’s funds and assets. This sequestration action is based on an old Elizabethan law never used in North America, and used only once in recent times—by Margaret Thatcher in the British miners’ strike. On February 4, UNA was found to be guilty of criminal contempt of the Court, and fined $250,000 to be paid within five days or the Union would be subject to a sequestration order.
On January 31, 1988, an “independent facilitator”, Mr. Chip Collins, appeared at the bargaining table and acted in the capacity of mediator and advisor to the government.
Discipline and Termination
On February 2, 1988, individual nurses were threatened with graduated discipline, up to and including termination, if they did not return to work immediately. Nurses continued to insist that they would walk the picket lines until they secured a negotiated collective agreement.
On February 3, 1988, civil contempt hearings for individual nurses proceeded. Over the next two weeks nurses from all over the province appeared in courthouses in Calgary and Edmonton to have their civil contempt charges heard.
On February 9, 1988, UNA paid the $250,000 criminal contempt fine, and was immediately served, at the courthouse, with a notice of motion of a second criminal contempt charge.
On February 10, 1988, individual nurses across Alberta received termination notices. In late night negotiations, UNA and the AHA and RAH employers had all but settled the terms of a settlement, but the employers refused to abandon their right not to collect Union dues, and no settlement was reached. Mr. Don McGregor, head of the AHA, was heard to say to reporters as he left the hotel: “They have to be punished somehow”.
On February 11, 1988, the employers tabled an improved offer.
On February 11, 1988, fines of up to $1,000 each for civil contempt began to be imposed on individual nurses.
On February 12, 1988, hearings on the second criminal contempt charge began, and UNA was eventually fined $150,000.
Negotiated Settlement
On February 12, 1988, UNA members voted to accept the employers’ latest improved offer, and a settlement was reached.
Strike Ends
On February 13, 1988, striking nurses returned to work with a negotiated Collective Agreement. In total, the Union paid approximately $426,750 in fines. Generous cash donations of support from other unions and from individuals helped UNA pay these fines.
The results of the 1988 strike were not very evident in the negotiated settlement, because the most important victory was forcing the employer to remove the takeaways from the table. Some improvements were realized, but in most respects it was a “tread water” type of settlement.
One major factor that had arisen in the 1984-85 and 1986-87 rounds of hospital bargaining, and emerged in major proportions during the 1988 strike, was the presence of the Staff Nurses Association of Alberta. Their process of bargaining with their employers at the same time as UNA and AHA/RAH negotiations occur, has allowed the government and the employers to play SNAA off against UNA. The premier of the province refused to talk directly to striking UNA nurses, and the government chose to use the SNAA bargaining table as a way to speak indirectly to UNA. This has not worked in the interest of either UNA or SNAA.
Smith Elected UNA President
At the 1988 Annual General Meeting, Heather Smith was elected President.
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