The Winnipeg Free Press shared a lovely, in-depth tribute to the life of Vera Chernecki, former MNU President, in their Passages section on October 22, 2022. Here is an excerpt:
An admired and inspiring leader with a 36-year career in health care, both at the bedside and bargaining table, Vera Chernecki had a passion for educating and mentoring.
In work, community and family, Chernecki’s life was one of dedicated service to humanity, a caring spirit at the heart of everything she did.
Married to her soulmate for 59 years, mother of four daughters and baba to six grandchildren, Chernecki died July 15 of pancreatic cancer, at 81, surrounded by family grateful to be by her side the way she’d always been for them.
Born Vera Shewchuk, she grew up on the family farm at Garland and attended school in Ethelbert, where she met her high school sweetheart, Ray Chernecki.
She graduated from the St. Boniface Hospital School of Nursing in 1962, devoting her life to health care and later served as president of the Manitoba Nurses Union from 1981 to 1999. Chernecki will long be remembered for her many years of leadership in, and passion for, the fight to improve nurses’ working conditions and the quality of patient care.
Chernecki was MNU president during the historic 30-day strike in 1991, as thousands of nurses walked out of hospitals across the province Jan. 1.
When they finally returned, registered nurses had a two-year contract with an almost 13 per cent wage increase, licensed practical nurses got a 10 per cent bump, and the agreement included creating nursing advisory committees.
MNU president Darlene Jackson said Chernecki was “always very eloquent and always the voice of reason.”
To read the full tribute, please click this link.