Members of British Columbia’s nurses union have voted overwhelmingly to strike after six months of “super frustrating” negotiations that are going nowhere, union president Adriane Gear said Tuesday.
Almost 51,000 of the approximately 55,000 BC Nurses' Union members voted 98.2 per cent in favour of strike action after talks reached an impasse in April over issues including benefits, pay and staffing shortages.
Gear said as she announced the strike vote that the union had been met by an "employer who has refused to offer any substantive contract improvements or commit to the compensation and funding made available in other public sector contracts."
"Nurses are a critical part of the health care system, " she said. "Why should we accept less?"
She said the six months of negotiations with the Health Employers Association of B.C. have been difficult as they proposed and counter proposed 140 items, but have heard back on only 65 and four have been accepted, including correcting a spelling mistake in the collective agreement.
"So, we aren't getting anywhere," she said.
Gear said their "next move is to get back to the table."
While she knows the health employers came to the table with "marching orders," she said she hopes that the strike vote sends a message to both the employers association and the provincial government.
"It's time to come to the table and seriously respect nurses."
The last agreement between the union and the province expired in March 2025.
B.C.'s Health Minister Josie Osborne said the strike vote was "one step" in the collective bargaining process.
"I hope that the parties will return to the table to resume negotiations. In the event of any job action, essential services plans are in place to help ensure the continued delivery of services and essential care for people," she said in a statement on Tuesday.
Osborne pointed to the government's recent tentative agreement with Doctors of BC and ratified agreements with the Health Sciences Association and the Hospital Employees Union as evidence of successful negotiations between health care workers and their employers.
The B.C. government’s so-called balanced measures negotiating mandate for 2025 public sector bargaining involves an annual three per cent general wage increase for the balance of the contract.
Doctors of BC ratified a four-year agreement in April that gave them wage increases of three per cent per year along with measures to address workload, training pressures, financial support for education and lump-sum payments for residents to help with costs of training materials and exam preparation.
Gear said health employers had refused to commit to enhanced funding offered in other public sector contracts, which leaves around $100 million on the table that could improve services and decrease nurses' workload.
The vote gives union members the ability to take job action with 72-hours notice, but Gear said it doesn't mean nurses "are going on strike tomorrow."
"We want to get back to the table. We want a deal," she said.
Gear said the vote's outcome shows that the nurses are united more than ever.
She said they are "ready to fight" for an agreement that values and respects them and strengthens public health care.
The union has said there's an increasing burden on its nurses, with about 4,500 vacant positions that can't be filled.
Gear said escalating workplace violence and proper funding to meet nurse-to-patient ratios are among the other concerns nurses are hoping to address through bargaining.
In a news release, the B.C. Conservative Party said the NDP government was to blame for staffing shortages, hospital closures and others issues affecting nurses, whose demands are "long overdue." "This government has had every opportunity to address what is driving nurses away from the profession, and it has not," the Conservatives' health critic Anna Kindy said.
B.C. Premier David Eby had said Friday that the province remained "at the table" with the nurses' union, and he was confident they would be able to reach an agreement.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
