Thank you for Joining AUPE’s Telephone Town Halls
On July 5 and 6, Licensed Practical Nurses from across the province joined three AUPE telephone town halls. Thousands of members participated in critical discussions about their profession, their working conditions, and preparations for collective bargaining in 2024.
AUPE President Guy Smith, Vice-President and LPN Susan Slade, and several LPNs from the membership attended the town halls to answer members’ questions about important issues affecting LPNs and our union.
But what were the important issues AUPE members asked to hold town halls about? The most crucial topic was a Labour Board application that would impact your livelihoods and your membership with AUPE.
The Labour Board Application to Change LPNs’ Bargaining Unit
On April 25, 2023, five LPNs submitted an application to the Alberta Labour Relations Board. This application, if granted, would change which bargaining unit LPNs employed by AHS and Covenant Health.
First and foremost, AUPE recognizes LPNs are nurses. The problem with this Labour Board application, however, is that, if it were successful, all the LPNs working for Alberta Health Services and Covenant Health would be ripped out of AUPE and forced to join the United Nurses of Alberta. You would be assigned a new union regardless of your personal feelings and, despite misleading claims by UNA leadership, without a democratic vote.
AUPE leadership and activists have spoken with countless members to consult you on this issue and listen to your perspectives. This is why our town halls were so important.
You deserve to have your voice heard. You deserve to participate in your union. You deserve the benefits that come with being an AUPE member, including the democratic processes that all members use to govern our union. You deserve to be recognized as nurses by your employers and other healthcare professionals the same way AUPE’s 95,000 members recognize and support you.
You do not deserve to lose what you have gained as a result of being placed into a different union without a vote or a say.
The recent town halls were only part of our efforts to engage with you, which will continue as the Labour Board considers the application.
AUPE’s legal opinion on the application
AUPE’s legal counsel, Pat Nugent, submitted a response to the Labour Board. He believes the application will fail based on a number of factors, including the fact the Labour Board has denied many similar applications in the past.
Most importantly, AUPE’s legal counsel submitted this response to protect your interests. AUPE members are part of the largest, most diverse union in western Canada. We are powerful and have built a successful union that sets the standards other unions follow because of our solidarity. Being undemocratically removed from AUPE would plunge LPNs into risky, uncharted waters, with no guarantees for what a new contract would look like or how you would be represented by another union.
Evidence from across the Canada shows LPNs who are represented by RN unions experience a suppression in the growth of employment and a loss of leverage to influence improving their working conditions, benefits and salaries.
That’s what this issue comes down to: the united, powerful, leading role LPNs take in our union and how that role benefits you and all AUPE members. Some of AUPE’s most active members and elected leaders are proud LPNs. Your membership is integral to our strength.
Making Gains in Bargaining in 2024
We are determined to ensure that your influence and leading role within AUPE will be used to your advantage in collective bargaining starting in early 2024. We are preparing now to engage in bargaining from a position of strength using all the tools available to us. A powerful tool is that all AUPE healthcare workers and the rest of the public sector are under one union that can bring them together to the benefit of all members.
Bargaining will be tough, as it always is, and we will all be fully prepared to fight for what you deserve. This includes salary increases which properly reflect your increased scope of practice as determined by the CLPNA. We know you need and deserve compensation increases, and 99% of the LPNs attending the telephone town halls agreed. This is in stark contrast to those advocating for the forced move to UNA when they publicly stated “...we’re not doing this to get higher wages”.
In fact, AUPE members have made significant gains at the bargaining table because of our willingness to support our negotiating teams and fight for our collective agreements. LPNs with AUPE have made gains of approximately 130% in wage increases over the last 23 years, nearly 30% higher than RNs’ wage increases in the same timeframe. Granted, these gains have slowed over the past few years, especially when unions like UNA set the bar at multiple 0% wage settlements in previous negotiations. But what we do know from historical facts is that when LPNs stick together and stand up together, they can win impressive wage gains.
Throughout Canada, and especially in western provinces, LPNs see greater gains and job growth when they do not belong to registered nurses’ unions. When LPNs do belong to RN unions, the unions have no incentive to close the gaps between RNs and LPNs. Sometimes, those gaps widen. Here in Alberta, we’ve decreased the wage gap between LPN and RN wages by nearly 25% since 2000.
Regardless, the Labour Board application will take a long time to settle. This means LPNs working for AHS and Covenant Health will be AUPE members when negotiations begin again in early 2024. You are the key to achieving gains at the bargaining table when you participate in AUPE meetings, fill out your bargaining surveys, and organize your worksites in case we need to take action. You will be supported by AUPE activists, leaders, and staff throughout this entire process.
Most importantly, success in bargaining relies upon you using your collective power as LPNs, alongside health care aides as your fellow health care team workers. LPNs have expressed fear and frustration that the Labour Board application, which would force you into UNA, has resulted in dividing LPNs and undermining the solidarity that is so crucial to success. Your bosses enjoy watching this. So, let’s show them that we won’t let the interference of another union detract us from demonstrating what we are all really made of by standing up together for respect, dignity, and power.
Respect, dignity, and power
The bottom line is that Licensed Practical Nurses deserve respect. You deserve respect from your employer, whether you work at a smaller continuing care site or for a massive organization like AHS and Covenant Health. You also deserve respect from the public, the Albertans you proudly care for, most of whom sincerely appreciate everything you do for them when they are at their lowest.
More than that, you also deserve dignity from your employer. Dignity can mean a lot of things, such as increased compensation that help with the rising cost of living, a sense of pride and meaning that comes from contributing to Alberta’s public health care system, and bosses who follow the collective agreement that governs your working conditions.
Respect and dignity don’t come easily. Nor would respect and dignity come automatically if the Labour Board recategorized LPNs and forced you to join UNA. Respect in the public’s eyes comes from our advocacy and, more importantly, the collective power LPNs hold as unionized workers. It’s all about you using that power to fight for the wages and working conditions you deserve.
To build that power, we must stand united. We must work together, have conversations with each other, and organize our worksites so that we are prepared when the time comes to fight for what we deserve.