The Northwest Territories’ largest workers’ union says it is doing its “due diligence” over a proposal to split off nurses into their own bargaining unit.
Yellowknife North MLA Shauna Morgan has drafted a private member’s bill which, if passed, would allow NWT nurses to pursue their own collective agreements rather than be lumped in with thousands of other territorial government workers.
This week, the territory’s physicians’ association said it backed that move. The Union of Northern Workers and its parent the Public Service Alliance of Canada have, however, expressed reservations about the plan.
PSAC has said giving nurses their own bargaining unit would roll back protections earned through the existing collective agreement, jeopardize their ability to use strike action as a negotiating tool, and leave nurses “at the mercy of the employer” if and when current staffing shortages ease.
Morgan argues allowing nurses to form their own bargaining unit would let them advocate for needs that are distinct from those of other GNWT employees.
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In a statement this week, Union of Northern Workers president Gayla Thunstrom said the union “began reaching out to members in healthcare in March,” including an online survey sent to all of its members at the Department of Health and Social Services, the NWT’s health authority and the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority.
Thunstrom said she and PSAC’s Josée-Anne Spirito had held “a series of in-person and online membership meetings for healthcare members in every region … to answer questions and receive feedback on the proposed bill.”
The union did not assert a timeline for that feedback to result in a firm decision on whether to back the bill or not.
While the union says it is “not opposed” in principle, PSAC has appeared to rule out pursuing or accepting any change in the months ahead, suggesting the creation of a nurses’ bargaining unit should happen only through future “meaningful consultation with all of our members.”
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In this week’s statement, Thunstrom said the UNW “represents over 2,000 healthcare members, and we will continue to do our due diligence to engage with as many of those members as possible to ensure the voices and viewpoints of healthcare workers in every UNW local and region are heard.”
It’s not easy to establish the proportion of nurses that support calls to receive their own bargaining unit.
The two organizations in the NWT that formally give a voice to nurses are the UNW and the College and Association of Nurses of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
The UNW and PSAC have so far set out a position that appears to be at odds with at least some member nurses.
After this article was first published, CANNN said it was “actively working to support the exploration of a separate bargaining unit for nurses in the NWT.”
“We are working with members and other stakeholders through the distribution of a survey to our membership. This survey will provide us with information on the number of members who support a collective bargaining unit for nurses and will then be shared with the MLAs and other stakeholders,” the organization stated.
Without that kind of survey to date, there has been no ready means of telling how the many hundreds of nurses in the territory collectively feel.
Privately, Cabin Radio has heard from more than a dozen nurses in the past year who support having their own bargaining unit. Whether they are representative of their profession as a whole is not yet clear.
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Sheila Laity, a nurse in the NWT for 32 years, said in March: “We’ve asked repeatedly to have a voice and really, when it comes to nurses having a voice at the UNW bargaining table, the only real voice we have is at Stanton Hospital, where the majority of the local members are nurses.” (In a statement sent to Cabin Radio after publication, the union said nurses make up 40 percent of that local’s members, not a majority.)
A private member’s bill is a piece of legislation brought forward by a regular MLA rather than cabinet. Morgan is expected to formally introduce her bill in the House next month.
Correction: April 24, 2025 – 12:57 MT. This article initially set out the position CANNN took on a separate nurses’ bargaining unit when contacted in March. That position changed with the introduction of a survey this week – a development that is now reflected in this updated report.
