Debbie Forward says patient care has been curtailed because nurses are expected to do duties that other employees should be doing. (CBC)

Newfoundland and Labrador's nurses will launch a job action on Wednesday to bring more pressure on contract demands, with a refusal to do work that's supposed to be performed by other employees anyway.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses' Union, which broke off conciliation talks earlier this month, said the campaign will start on Wednesday.

President Debbie Forward said her union's 5,500 members will stop doing "non-nursing duties," which includes tasks ranging from emptying garbage pails and restocking shelves to clerical tasks.

Forward said nurses in hospitals and nursing homes often do such tasks because other employees are not available.

"We've got employers in this province that on their lists [say that] on Tuesday night, it's nurses' responsibility to defrost the fridge. I'm sorry? In a time when we are short 1,000 nurses in this province?" Forward told reporters Tuesday.

"Our message to the employer is find someone else to defrost the fridge. Nurses are going to be at the patients' bedside, looking after patients."

Forward said that patients should benefit and not be harmed by the nurses' decision.

"It just is unimaginable — when you think about it — that we have experienced, educated nurses in the system and they're spending their time doing non-nursing things like cleaning beds and stretchers and showers and baths, and stocking shelves," she said.

When asked whether hospital patients will have to cope with more mess in their midst, Forward replied, "Someone else is going to have to do it."

Meanwhile, the nurses are planning further action, but are not commenting on what plans they have until Oct. 9. The nurses' union board met last week after the union walked away from conciliation talks.

"We do not want to put them out there until next week, and that's our commitment," she said. "I'm not going to say what they are."

"We've committed to our members that we will do everything in our power to avoid a job action, which a strike vote could certainly lead us to that," Forward said. "We believe we still have lots of options open to us, a strike vote being one of them."

The nurses will be rolling out the next steps in their campaign just as several hundred gather for the union's annual convention. Forward said negotiations will be the key issue at that meeting.

Package needed for recruitment, compensation: nurses

The union had presented an opening wage demand this spring of 12 per cent for each of two years, as well as an overhaul of starting and top pay scales.

The nurses say an ambitious pay package is necessary to recruit hundreds of nurses, and to compensate for years of retrenchment.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government, though, has said the nurses' demands are far beyond what the province can afford.

Forward said government negotiators insisted that the nurses withdraw some of their demands before a better offer would be made.

The government has said it expects public sector unions to follow a deal hammered out earlier this year with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which settled for about 20 per cent over four years.