EDMONTON - Alberta's registered nurses will be among the highest paid nurses in Canada as a result of a new three-year contract that includes wages increases of 15 per cent and hefty cash bonuses.
The highest rates for senior nurses will increase to $43 an hour from $37 an hour in the third year of the deal.
"That's kind of a reality of life in Alberta these days," says Howard May, spokesman for Alberta Health. "We've got terrific recruitment challenges, so there's no point in building new hospitals if you don't have nurses and doctors."
The nurses voted strongly in favour of the new deal this week and Alberta's nine health authorities announced Thursday that they have also ratified the new contract.
But the head of the nurses' union says the larger issue for Alberta hospitals right now is the fact that roughly 20 per cent of Alberta's 26,000 registered nurses are in a position to retire, creating a scenario for a serious shortage of nurses.
"At least 5,000 registered nurses are eligible to retire in this province right now," says Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta. "Over a third of our workforce is over 50 years of age."
The contract includes an additional two per cent wage increase for nurses with 20 years experience. There's also increased payments for shifts that are difficult to fill on nights, weekends and holidays, and nurses who work solely on weekends will put in fewer hours but get paid for full time hours.
There's also a new provision that allows nurses considering retirement to work part time and still get full contributions to their pensions.
Smith says with two major hospital projects now being constructed in Edmonton and Calgary, there may not be enough nurses to fill the jobs these new facilities create.
"It would not be sane to suggest they can open with full capacity," she said. "They may build the walls and buy the beds, but I'd hold off on buying any sheets because we're not going to have the workforce."
The union had been saying that an illegal strike might be in the works unless they got major pay hikes to help nurses cope with Alberta's super-heated economy.
But a mediator's report last month recommended the wage package, which includes increases of five per cent in each year, plus cash bonuses totalling nearly $5,000 over three years.
So far, there are no global figures being released on the total cost of this settlement, but May says there's enough money in the current provincial budget to cover the higher wages.
"This was no surprise to anyone," he said. "There was contingency funding built into this year's budgeting process, so it shouldn't require any further funding from the province."
Shannon Larkins, who speaks for Alberta's health regions, says they're still adding up the costs of the settlement, but the size of the settlement was not unexpected.
"The health regions have set aside money as a contingency in their budgets, knowing that this deal was in the making," Larkins said in an interview.
But she says the larger issue for the health regions is recruiting and retaining nurses with incentives that will keep them from moving out of the province or leaving the profession.
