Grey Listing
Grey listing is one of the strongest tools MNU has to signal that a facility is no longer safe for staff.
When nurses grey list a facility, MNU advises current and prospective members not to seek employment there due to ongoing unsafe or inappropriate working conditions. It is not a strike or job action. It is a member-driven decision rooted in safety.
Over the past year, nurses in multiple Manitoba facilities have taken this step, not because they wanted to, but because they felt they had no other choice. Same shift, different day.
August 2025: Health Sciences Centre (HSC)
The road to grey listing at HSC was long and painful. Over the summer, a series of sexual assaults occurred on and around the HSC campus. The employer’s communication around those incidents was slow, vague, and left nurses feeling exposed instead of protected. These assaults came on top of a steady pattern of violence, threats, and unsafe conditions that nurses have been flagging for years.
Earlier this year, HSC nurses from MNU Worksite 10 voted overwhelmingly — 94% in favour — to grey list Manitoba’s largest healthcare facility. Their message was clear: the violence must be addressed, and the employer and provincial government must make nurse safety a priority.
Nurses put forward a detailed list of security and safety recommendations outlining exactly what must change before the grey list is lifted — from controlled access and proper screening to improved security presence, communication tools, and post-incident processes. While there has been some movement, nurses are still waiting for comprehensive, sustained action.
November 2025: Thompson General Hospital (TGH)
By the end of 2025, violence at TGH escalated to alarming levels. In 2024 alone, there were 557 law enforcement responses at the hospital — in a community of just 13,000 people.
These were not minor incidents. An armed individual entered the hospital chapel and fired a shot through a window. A stabbing occurred in the ER waiting room, where a nurse had to intervene until RCMP arrived. Nurses had been raising concerns about inadequate security for years.
Following the escalation and lack of timely action, TGH nurses voted to grey list the facility. The vote closed November 21, 2025, with 97% in favour, sending an unmistakable message that safety cannot wait.
February 2026: St. Boniface Hospital (SBH)
Safety concerns at SBH have been longstanding. In November 2025, those concerns were brought into sharp focus after a nurse was sexually assaulted in a hospital parkade. In the weeks and months that followed, MNU received numerous accounts from SBH nurses describing unsafe conditions and ongoing fears for their personal safety and the safety of their patients.
As those stories continued, the conversation about grey listing intensified. In February 2026, SBH nurses voted overwhelmingly — 94% in favour — to grey list the facility.
Across all three facilities, the pattern is clear. Nurses have raised concerns. They have proposed solutions. They have asked for meaningful change.
When those calls go unanswered, grey listing becomes the line in the sand.
Nurses cannot provide safe care when they are working in fear, and they deserve better than a system that hides or minimizes the violence they face every day.
Until every recommendation is implemented, the grey lists will stay in place, and nurses will continue pushing for the safe working environments they deserve.
100+
Days since nurses at HSC grey listed the facility because working conditions were too unsafe to ignore.
