New Brunswick nurses vote overwhelmingly in favour of strike
CBC
New Brunswick nurses have voted resoundingly in favour of a strike.
About 9,000 members of the New Brunswick Nurses Union began voting last week, with votes being counted all day Monday at the Delta Hotel in Fredericton. By late afternoon, union president Paula Doucet confirmed the results of the three bargaining units' votes.
Union members voted 92 per cent in favour of a strike vote combined.
"Our nursing home nurses voted 89 per cent in favour of a strike. Our Part Three nurses — so all of Vitalité, Horizon and [Extramural] — was 91 per cent and our nurse managers and supervisors 96 per cent," Doucet told CBC News, noting the mood was "very jubilant."
The union and the province are to return to the bargaining table on Tuesday, the first time they have done so since late September.
Doucet declined to comment Monday on what the union will be seeking during bargaining, citing a "media blackout."
"But I think anybody just has to look at recent media reports of working conditions" across the province, she said.
"Right now for a nurse in New Brunswick, it hasn't been great."
Doucet noted no strike or other job action is planned at this time.
"We would have to give seven days notice before we take any job action," she said. "In the spirit of going back to the table, that would be where we would want to get our deal, is at the table and not out on the sidewalk."
The union represents 9,000 licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners. They have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2018, and members have twice rejected tentative agreements.
Doucet has repeatedly warned of the pressures of nursing shortages and the increasing reality of burnout, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision comes just weeks after a strike vote by provincial workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
More than 20,000 public servants, including school bus drivers, educational support staff and workers in transportation, corrections and the community college system, went on strike in late October for more than two weeks.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a large shuffle of deputy ministers and senior public servants in a shake-up at the top of the public service that has long been expected around Ottawa.
Alberta's declining COVID-19 vaccination rate is sparking more concern as it becomes clear how uptake in the province compares to other parts of the country.
Drivers faced treacherous road conditions Friday morning as tempuratures started to drop below freezing following a night of rain.
A cold front is sweeping through the Greater Toronto Area Friday morning, according to a special weather statement by Environment Canada.
In the wake of Calgary's council kicking off a process to repeal the city's blanket rezoning policy, the corporation responsible for administering significant federal housing money warns the changes could put funding for new housing at risk.
Residents of an apartment building in St. John's are finding their footing again after a fire burned through the complex leaving most without anything in October.
A new program aimed at providing employment advice for workers facing layoffs at Algoma Steel has been launched in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont..
Even if Samuel Provo-Benoit doesn’t get the present he dearly wants in time for Christmas — a kidney and pancreas transplant to beat the Type 1 diabetes that’s steadily destroying his body — he has something else to celebrate.
A claim by New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt that petroleum refiners will be paying the $1 million per week cost of a gasoline price cut that her government orchestrated last weekend does not appear to be unfolding that way.
Sonia Bélanger, junior health minister and the minister responsible for senior and social services, is expected to be sworn in as early as Friday as Quebec's new health minister, according to sources at Radio-Canada.
A growing number of Manitoba's MRI machines now use artificial intelligence, with a plan to have more than half using the technology by spring.
A mobile unit the Saskatchewan government bought in 2002 for providing mammograms to Saskatchewan women will soon retire.
The Prince Edward Island government is rolling out the province’s first-ever policing standards, which officials say will make police services more consistent, transparent and better supported.