Alberta nurses rally for better wages on commemorative day of action

Hundreds of nurses in Calgary and Edmonton came together to call for respect for frontline healthcare workers on a Day of Action Saturday.

The United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) say the rally was a chance to protest wages and spread awareness of the state of healthcare, including a current staff shortage and cut services.

UNA president Heather Smith told 660 NewsRadio on Friday their current mediation and the province’s reorganization of the health system are the two main reasons behind the day of action.

“We are standing up as advocates and defenders of medicare — public health care — against what we see as the very destructive changes happening in the province. The dismantling of health services and our fears around privatization,” she said Saturday in Edmonton.

The rallies come as talks began again Thursday after UNA members rejected a tentative mediator’s recommendation in October.

The mediator recommended pay increases ranging from 12 to 22 per cent over four years, while the nurses wanted closer to 30 per cent over two years.

The UNA said this would allow nurses to catch up on the cost of living and what they’ve given up over the years for the benefit of the provincial budget.

Stephanie Wilcox, an emergency nurse at the South Health Campus Hospital in Calgary, says they are overworked and underpaid, and patients are the ones who suffer.

“We are all doing the best we can,” she told CityNews.

“We are always expected to do more with less. We have so many patients in our little department and we have moral distress because we are not providing the care that we wish we could.”

Karen Kuprys, the second vice president of the United Nurses of Alberta, echoes Wilcox, adding there are staff shortages and emergency services are shutting down.

“This is really tragic, especially in rural areas where they have to travel further and further,” she said. “We see wait times that are increasing, and we are facing the frustrations that patients and families feel in hospitals.”

The strike on Jan 25 commemorated the historic 1988 UNA strike when more than 14,000 nurses at hospitals across Alberta walked off the job for a 19-day strike.

Smith says 1997 was the last time nurses were close to striking, but adds they’re even closer now in 2025.

Nurses across the province say they are hopeful these rallies give them a voice to make positive changes in the health care system.

“We want the employers and the government to know they need to do better at the governing table for us,” Kuprys said.

With files from Lisa Grant, 660 NewsRadio