The trade union and anti-racist movements lost a beloved activist and mentor on March 19, 2024. Beryl Scott, a registered nurse, was a dedicated United Nurses of Alberta activist during 30 years of nursing in Alberta, including 12 years on UNA’s Executive Board. Even after her retirement in 2011, Beryl remained committed to the union whose role in promoting human rights she lauded and rewarded in 2017, in her role as vice-president of the Canadian Multicultural Education Foundation, with a Robinson Koilpalli Multiculturalism Award for the union’s support of its diverse membership and its contribution to humanitarian missions through financial grants to members providing medical support abroad. Scott had spearheaded such efforts during her years of activism in UNA.
Beryl Scott grew up in Montego Bay, Jamaica. At 14 she moved to Bournemouth, England, where she later trained as a Registered Nurse (RN), and was certified as well as a midwife and health visitor. She moved to Canada in 1976 to join her sister in Hamilton, and to work as an RN. In 1980 she joined her brother and his family in Alberta. She continued as an RN, working at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for a year, and then serving as an RN at the Grey Nuns Hospital for 29 years, remaining an active member of Local 79 till her retirement. She loved mentoring new nurses and urging them to become union activists. The first of three major province-wide nurses’ strikes in the 1980s began just a week after Beryl had arrived in Alberta. That strike won a clause in the UNA contract establishing a mechanism for nurses to report and get action on Professional Responsibility Concerns (PRC). Scott put that clause to work in her ward and in her mentoring of new nurses.
Throughout her nursing career, including her service on the UNA Board from 1999 to 2011, Beryl championed minorities in the nursing profession while also promoting human rights as part of her broader activism in the Alberta Federation of Labour. She helped to create the Ethnically Diverse and Indigenous Workers of Alberta Caucus in UNA, and the Workers of Colour and Aboriginal Workers (WOCAW) caucus within the AFL. She has also worked within community organizations outside the labour movement promoting human rights. She served on the board of the Centre for Race and Colour (formerly Northern Alberta Association for Race Relations) and as vice-president and then president of the Canadian Multicultural Education Foundation. She was actively involved in many communities, supporting diverse cultural groups to promote equality and human rights.
Beryl’s professional and civil liberties work has been recognized with awards from many groups, including Daughters’ Day, International Women’s Day and the Award for Surgical Nursing (UK). She remained a committed associate member of the UNA throughout her retirement.
When she announced her retirement from active nursing and from the UNA Board on October 6, 2011 to the North Central District Meeting, Beryl said: “My passion for social justice and unionism will remain my focal point, even in retirement.” She proved true to her word. Rest in solidarity, Beryl!