Last-minute tentative deal averts strike by 7,000 health workers

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This article was published 07/03/2025 (249 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 7,000 public health workers who went to bed Thursday night expecting to be on picket lines Friday morning went to work instead.

Marathon bargaining between the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals and the province produced a tentative agreement at about 4 a.m.

MAHCP president Jason Linklater said strike action is on hold until union members — including physio and occupational therapists, dietitians, medical technicians, pharmacists and social workers — receive information about the tentative deal and are able to vote on it.

“It was a very late night,” he said Friday. “After bargaining for a total of 11 months, we reached a tentative agreement. “We will present this offer to the membership and they will be the ones who decide whether they will ratify or reject.”

Wages were among the main issues, with the union pushing for pay similar to what workers receive in other provinces.

Linklater said no details deal will be made public until members vote. He was unable to say when the vote would take place.

The workers are employed by the Winnipeg and Northern regional health authorities and Shared Health.

“We were glad to hear that a tentative agreement was reached between the employers and our province’s professional technical/paramedical sector employees,” a spokesperson for Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a statement.

“Our government will continue our work to make Manitoba the best place to work in health care by taking care of those who take care of us.”

A Shared Health spokesperson issued a similar statement, thanking health-care workers for their efforts throughout the negotiations.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca