From allies to foes: nurses union, NDP must repair rift for sake of patients

When the NDP returned to power in 2023, the party had every reason reason to believe it would work closely with the Manitoba Nurses Union to heal a health care system that had been eviscerated by years of cuts.

The NDP and MNU have always been, for lack of a better term, political allies. The MNU was involved in open warfare with the former Progressive Conservative government; the return of the NDP was heralded by many nurses as the beginning of new era of collaboration and progress.

However, two years later, the all-for-one and one-for-all sentiment has yet to materialize.

The NDP did quickly settle a contract with the MNU that had been left in limbo by the Tories. However, delivering a new contract with some innovative and generous provisions, including significant recruitment and retention cash bonuses, has done little to promote a harmonious relationship.

The union’s anger could be seen in spades at Tuesday’s throne speech.

President Darlene Jackson was on hand to condemn various pledges in the speech designed to improve working conditions for nurses. She claimed the promise to eliminate mandatory overtime for health care workers — a major concern in the understaffed system — is unrealistic. She repeated claims that nurses have not seen any net benefits from the 1,200 additional nurses Kinew claims the province has hired.

“I have nurses coming to me and asking, ‘Where are they?’” Jackson told reporters.

The comments were made days before union members voted to grey-list the Thompson General Hospital — a move aimed at discouraging colleagues from applying for jobs and taking shifts.

This is a significant gesture. Thompson joins Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre on the grey list, the first time in Manitoba that two health facilities are subject to the designation at the same time.

It should be said that nurses in general, and the union in particular, have a lot of bona fide concerns that are still unaddressed. At the top of that list is concern about the physical safety of staff in hospitals and in the surrounding neighbourhoods. The system is still, officially speaking, understaffed; the entire country does not have enough doctors and nurses and Manitoba is no different.

Even with those issues taken into consideration, the union’s reaction to the NDP’s attempts to assuage their concerns — and in particular the grey listing of hospitals — seems to ignore the size and scope of the problem faced by the government.

After counting all the new hires, Manitoba still needs about 1,000 nurses to ensure existing nurses are not forced to work unreasonable amounts of overtime. That is a tough task given every province has a nursing shortage.

Even with these challenges, there have been improvements.

Mandatory overtime at facilities overseen by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority had gone down by nearly 50 per cent as of February. At the same time, vacancy rates at major city hospitals have declined and the government has said recruiting incentives and a new nursing float pool should produce a significant decline in the amount of money spent hiring nurses from private agencies to fill staffing gaps.

Not to doubt the union president, but it seems clear Winnipeg nurses have probably not only noticed the increase in nurses, but are benefiting from their presence.

It must be said the improvements seen in Winnipeg may not be materializing in every department of every facility, or in other parts of the province. Recruiting and retaining a nurse in Winnipeg is not as difficult as recruiting and retaining nurses in the north or rural areas.

It also should be said the Kinew government hasn’t officially solved or eliminated any of the chronic problems in health care. Emergency rooms are still crowded and wait lists for elective surgeries and diagnostic tests are unconscionably long.

At the same time, it’s fair to say important steps have been taken toward solutions.

In that context, how are we to judge the reaction from the nurses union?

The union has legitimate bones to pick with the government, but on some of the issues it has identified, the appetite for confrontation and refusal to acknowledge small steps forward seems quite curious.

Perhaps the grey-listing is solely due to the fact the Kinew government let nurses down when it comes to security, not just in Winnipeg but in Thompson and other rural facilities. Despite months of pledges, there are no institutional safety officers or weapon detectors at the hospital in Thompson. That failure certainly could poison the entire relationship between the union and government.

The only point of certainty is that before the system can be healed, someone will have to stitch up the rift between the Kinew government and the nurses union. Otherwise, it will be a gaping wound that prevents us from solving the problems that both sides agree need to be solved.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com