Join UNA in celebrating 40 years at your side and on your side: President Heather Smith

On May 6, 1977, 1,300 nurses attended the annual meeting in Calgary of the Alberta Association of Registered Nurses, many of them deeply concerned with the organization’s dual role as professional regulatory association and collective bargaining agency.

When the dust had settled at the end of the often tense and contentious meeting, the nurses there voted to form an independent union. And so, 40 years ago Saturday, United Nurses of Alberta was born.

“It was a momentous decision that has had very positive results for Alberta’s Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric Nurses,” says UNA President Heather Smith.

“UNA was a real union, committed to fighting hard for its members, and for the professional responsibilities of all RNs and RPNs,” Smith said. “But not just its members. From the start UNA has fought for our patients, too, for the residents of facilities where nurses work, for their families, for health care workers in other fields, and for all Albertans who depend on our province’s and our country’s fair, publicly supported health care system.

“Our message to Albertans every year since 1977 has been that Alberta’s nurses are at your side and on your side,” she stated. 

“Our successes in bargaining over the years since then show that the creation of UNA was the right move for Alberta’s nurses,” Smith added. “This year, and every year, we should celebrate the establishment of our union in 1977 and remember that we owe our success to the way we approach bargaining, and the fact that we enter bargaining for every contract ensuring we have the support of the members affected.

UNA is marking its 40th anniversary in several ways, Smith said, including proudly hosting the biennial national convention of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions next month in Calgary, where UNA got its start. 

This weekend, a province-wide advertising campaign celebrating the 40th anniversary, emphasizing the professionalism, education and skill of Alberta’s nurses, and explaining their commitment to being on your side when they are at your side when you use the health care system is being launched on billboards and bus-shelter posters, radio stations and online sites throughout Alberta. 

“The slogan of the campaign is ‘40 years at your side, on your side,’” Smith noted.

The ad campaign coincides with International Nursing Week, which always takes place during the week in which May 12 falls – honouring the birth in 1820 of Florence Nightingale, the English social reformer and statistician who is considered the founder of modern nursing.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, UNA has also updated its website with a new, modern look and an improved the union’s iPhone and Android app for members.

Both the website and the app now include a “REPORT A CONCERN” section that makes it easy for nurses to identify professional responsibility and occupational health and safety concerns, or raise questions about their collective agreements.

The new process on the app allows nurses, whether a member or dues payer who is not yet a member, to report concerns directly using a simplified process, and allows members to follow the progress of how their concerns are being dealt with.

“Every day we work hard to make UNA more responsive to its members and more effective in ensuring Albertans in our care get the treatment and attention they deserve from their health care system,” Smith said.

“Join us this week in celebrating 40 years of this important work by UNA, and the prospect of many more, 40 years of being at your side and on your side,” she concluded.