UNA is born and goes directly into a bargaining crisis

On June 14, 1977 the new organization which they named United Nurses of Alberta moved into its own offices. Gurty Chinell was the union's first President and Bob Donahue became the first executive director of the new union. Two months after founding UNA, the nurses were deadlocked in contract negotiations with the Alberta Hospitals Association and when conciliation efforts failed, they ended up voting for their first strike. About twenty-five hundred nurses at seven hospitals began a legal strike on July 4th, 1977. Four days later, the provincial Cabinet passed an Order-in-Council ordering the nurses back to work and establishing a tribunal to work out a settlement binding on both parties. The nurses went back to work they had only collected two months of union dues since the UNA had been established. They could not pay the heavy fines threatened by the government. Mr. Justice Bowen, the arbitrator, awarded the nurses a nine per cent salary adjustment over one year, and the government had to do some fancy footwork to pay this in light of the six per cent ceiling in place with federal Wage and Price controls but the necessary legislation was passed and the nurses received their money.