HSAA Rejects Tentative Agreement
On September 10th, it was announced that 22000 Alberta healthcare workers, including thousands of paramedics, rejected a tentative agreement offer that was tabled by the UCP. This comes after over 16 months of bargaining where the UCP blatantly interfered in our negotiations by giving our employer binding and secret mandates to cap the pay raise we could be offered. Our employer frequently showed up unprepared to bargaining and refused to engage in meaningful negotiation to reach a mutually beneficial and fair agreement. This is consistent with the disrespect and contempt we are constantly shown by the UCP and our employer. In fact, a member of our own management is part of the employer's bargaining team. We are tired of being treated poorly and we refuse to capitulate to bullies.
Paramedics and all other healthcare professions are struggling. Our wages have been eroded by inflation while our workloads have dramatically increased. We know a main cause of our staffing crisis is losing coworkers to other professions that pay better. Every year, hundreds of paramedics leave EMS to become firefighters, police officers or nurses. Paramedics continue to have one of the highest disabling injury rates of any profession due to our unsustainable workload and its effects on our mental and physical health. We also know that our allied healthcare colleagues deal with similar issues of burnout and poor staffing levels. We see the effects of our collapsed healthcare system and how it lets down the public every single day. If we want to fix the healthcare system, it starts with a fair and progressive contract that allows us to recruit and retain healthcare workers.
This is a collective struggle to fight for a better healthcare system. A healthcare system that is well staffed and able to provide the patient care that the public deserves. Healthcare workers show up everyday to be there for the public. Now we are asking the public to be there for us. Public support means the world to us and is a powerful force that can help win the hardest of fights.
Please share this post. Start talking to your friends and family about the state of healthcare and the contract bargaining of healthcare workers. Write to Danielle Smith and Minister of Finance Nate Horner to say that you stand with healthcare workers. We appreciate any support that you can offer.
Finally, we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters from the Alberta Teachers Association who officially gave notice to begin a strike on October 6th if they cannot reach a deal. Collective struggle relies on collective power to win.
