Alberta Health Services is enacting contingency plans to deal with staffing shortages after support workers walked off the job Monday at several hospitals in Edmonton, Calgary and other municipalities.

The wildcat strike is a bid to halt job cuts proposed by the provincial government. Most of the workers involved are general support service workers represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees. 

AHS said it applied Monday morning to the Alberta Labour Relations Board "to formally ask the board to direct the affected employees back to work."

About 175 workers at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in central Edmonton refused to go into work Monday, AUPE president Guy Smith said in an interview with CBC News. 

About 100 workers have also walked off the job at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary and the South Health Campus in Calgary. 

Susan Slade, an AUPE vice-president, said "several hundred" workers across the province were involved in the strike at sites including the University of Alberta Hospital, the WestView Health Centre in Stony Plain and the Cold Lake Healthcare Centre.

AHS responds 

In a media statement, AHS said all sites remain open but some surgeries and ambulatory care clinics are being postponed.

It said it is redeploying non-union staff, including managers, wherever possible to cover for missing staff. AHS said it has reached out to staff to ask them to return to work.

"AHS is responding quickly to illegal strike action by Alberta Union of Provincial Employees staff at various sites across the province," the statement said.

"We are doing all we can to address any interruptions to patient care caused by this illegal job action. Our focus is on ensuring patients continue to receive the care and treatment they need.

"Patients will be contacted directly if their appointments are affected. Visitors may be limited at some sites depending on the level of strike action."

'Disrepected heroes' 

Most of the workers involved in the wildcat strike food service workers, cleaners, porters, clerical staff and maintenance workers. Some licensed practical nurses and health-care aides have also joined the picket lines, Smith said.  

"They really are the unsung heroes and the disrespected heroes of this government who keep the hospital safe and clean and operating," Smith said. 

Smith said the walkout was not authorized by the union but the AUPE supports its members' right to strike.

"From what I understand, it was the shift that was due to start at 7 o'clock, they refused to go in," Smith said. 

"We believe workers have the right to strike at any time to defend their jobs and defend the services to the people of the province. Alberta Health Services may view it differently but we'll deal with that when it comes." 

Support workers walked off the job on Monday at several Alberta hospitals including the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. (Francois Joly/Radio-Canada)

The union, which represents more than 60,000 AHS employees including licensed practical nurses, health-care aides, and housekeeping and kitchen staff, is accusing the UCP government of proposing "reckless and dangerous" changes to the health-care system. 

"These workers are on strike to protect their jobs, stop the privatization of health care and deal with workload issues in the health-care system at the moment," Smith said. 

"It comes after over a year of frustration and anger at the government which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. 

"And the frustration levels of the members are at the point where they decided to walk off the job at at least three sites that we know of at the moment."

Smith said that since the strike action is led by members, not the union, the workers will decide how long the strike continues. 

AUPE executive vice-president Bobby-Joe Borodey walked the picket line at Foothills Medical Centre on Monday morning. She said workershave hit a breaking point and that the strike will continue for "as long as it takes.

"We're out here to prove a point," she said. "We want to talk to the government and we want to let them know that we don't appreciate the direction that they're heading in and we're not prepared to go in until they're prepared to work with us." 

"The people you see on this picket line right now are the ones that are in immediate danger." 

The wildcat strike comes amid the threat of massive cuts in health care, detailed by Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro at a news conference earlier this month.

Between 9,700 and 11,000 AHS employees will be laid off, most of whom work in laboratory, linen, cleaning and in-patient food services.

The jobs will be outsourced to private companies. Shandro said the changes will save up to $600 million annually once they are fully implemented.

Unions representing Alberta's health-care workers have said there will be major labour strife if the government follows through on the proposed restructuring plan.

The relationship between the UCP government and doctors and health-care unions is already severely strained following a series of legislative initiatives.

In late 2019, the government passed legislation that gave it the power to unilaterally terminate its contract with the province's doctors.

The government also passed Bill 32, which placed restrictions on where unions could picket, and how they could use union dues for political purposes. That legislation is being legally challenged by the AUPE, which maintains it is unconstitutional.

On Monday, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) voiced its support for the wildcat strike. The HSAA represents 27,000 health-care workers across the province.

President Mike Parker said HSAA members will not do the work of those on strike.

"Health-care workers have been working tirelessly to keep Albertans safe and they have been rewarded with threats to their jobs by a government that is hell-bent on ripping apart our public healthcare system," Parker said in a statement. 

"The blame for any disruption to patient care that may occur today needs to land squarely at the feet of [Premier] Jason Kenney and the UCP." 

"The wildcat strikes occurring across Alberta are deeply concerning. Like all Albertans, our caucus believes patient safety must always be the top priority.

The Opposition NDP said Kenney and the UCP government have caused "widespread chaos" in the health-care system amid the pandemic.

In a statement Monday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley called on the government to halt the planned job cuts. 

"Jason Kenney's proposal to privatize the work of 11,000 front-line health-care workers in the middle of a pandemic will absolutely result in poorer quality health care for Albertans," Notley said in the statement.

"His suggestion that this can be done without compromising care defies common sense. For the sake of Alberta patients and the people who care about them, this reckless plan must stop."