United Nurses of Alberta members overwhelmingly ratify 4-year collective agreement
For immediate release: Thursday, April 3, 2025
Members of United Nurses of Alberta have overwhelmingly ratified a new collective agreement with Alberta Health Services, Recovery Alberta, Primary Care Alberta, Covenant Health, Lamont Health Care Centre, and The Bethany Group (Camrose) that will again make Alberta nurses the highest paid in any Canadian province.
Online voting on the new Provincial Collective Agreement took place throughout the day yesterday. Of the eligible Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric Nurses who voted, 95.74 per cent supported ratifying the new agreement. In addition, 100 per cent of UNA’s 124 affected locals voted in favour of accepting the new agreement, which covers approximately 33,000 of UNA’s more than 35,000 members. Voter turnout was 77.38 per cent.
As a result, the members will receive pay increases of approximately 20 per cent over the life of the four-year Provincial Collective Agreement, plus significant increases in premium pay and other benefits.
The contract will also continue to include nurses now working for AHS who are transferred in the weeks and months ahead to additional new public-sector agencies created as part of the Alberta Government’s restructuring of the province’s health care system.
“This round of negotiations was about Respect, Retention and Recruitment,” said UNA President Heather Smith. “When UNA members voted against ratifying a settlement that had been recommended by a Mediator last October, they spoke clearly, and we listened. The result was the agreement ratified yesterday.”
Smith described the new agreement – which retroactively takes effect from March 31, 2024, and will expire on April 1, 2028 – as “a meaningful step toward the recognition and respect Alberta’s nurses deserve and have been fighting for.”
“The Negotiating Committee believed it includes fair increases in compensation that will help to retain nurses now working in the health-care system and recruit new nurses to work in Alberta,” she said.
“This is an important acknowledgement of the value of Alberta’s nurses that they are once again the highest-paid in any Canadian province,” said UNA Labour Relations Director David Harrigan, the union’s lead negotiator.
The ratification vote was conducted using a secure online voting application and the results were calculated this morning.
Yesterday’s vote brings to a satisfactory end a particularly difficult round of bargaining, which included rejection of the Mediator’s recommended terms of settlement in a membership vote on Oct. 30.
The new agreement includes:
An immediate pay increase of up to 15 per cent
An overall increase of approximately 20 per cent for all affected members
Annual pay increases of 3 per cent in each year of the new agreement
A revised annual pay grid with pay increases of 4 per cent between each step
Pay increases retroactive to April 1, 2024
Significant monetary increases for on-call, charge pay, and other premiums
Full reimbursement of professional registrations and liability fees
New measures to ensure safe staffing
A commitment by the province to provide presumptive coverage for PTSD and psychological injuries
Job security during health care restructuring
Assistance for rural health care staffing