{"id":139941,"date":"2025-09-13T01:48:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T01:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/139941\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T01:48:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T01:48:17","slug":"alberta-health-professionals-vote-to-reject-tentative-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/139941\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta health professionals vote to reject tentative agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Members of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta have voted to reject a tentative deal struck with Alberta Health Services.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Of the 22,000 health care professionals in the HSAA,\u00a0including paramedics, psychologists, therapists and pharmacists, 59 per cent of those who voted rejected\u00a0the tentative agreement.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The agreement would have given workers employed by AHS\u00a0and other provincial health employers, including paramedics, psychologists, therapists and pharmacists, at least a\u00a012 per cent wage hike by March 31, 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">It also offered better health benefits for workers, job-protected leave for education upgrades, and better on-call and preceptor pay.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">About\u00a078 per cent of eligible members cast ballots between Aug. 28 and Sept. 10, HSAA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Last month,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/edmonton\/union-representing-22-000-alberta-health-professionals-reaches-tentative-agreement-1.7610600\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HSAA president Mike Parker\u00a0recommended members ratify the tentative deal.<\/a><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Parker said Wednesday that the conditions in the deal were not enough to make up for health care professionals handling an overburdened system.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We face a dangerous shortage of health care professionals in our province, the shortage that is felt by every Albertan who endures longer response times, longer wait times than emergency rooms, delayed surgeries, therapies and the prolonged agony of waiting, often for months,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The union last struck a deal with AHS in 2022, which saw workers getting a 4.25 per cent increase over four years.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner said in a statement that the agreement was struck based on conditions recommended by the HSAA and its members, and that it is now up to the union to determine why the ratification vote failed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;Alberta&#8217;s government remains ready to return to the bargaining table when the union, and its bargaining team, gain a better understanding of their members&#8217; interests and priorities,&#8221; it reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Parker, who reluctantly agreed to the initial deal, said the government was well aware of its shortcomings.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;To be clear, we spoke to them directly. They know what&#8217;s going on here,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We hope the government of Alberta and Alberta Health Services realizes that our work over the last 16 months to explain to them the shortcomings will now reflect the work that they bring back to us to conclude a deal there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The union has decided not to call a strike vote at this time. Instead, Parker\u00a0said members are working toward\u00a0next steps, and adequate wages were still the top priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta have voted to reject a tentative deal struck with Alberta&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-139941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}