Northeastern Public Health: Vote ONA

• The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) only represents nurses and health-care professionals. Because health care is our sole focus, we understand your work, your challenges, and your priorities.  

• All ONA resources are dedicated to improving your wages, your working conditions, and client care.  

• Regardless of your classification, your dues are spent on issues that matter to you; not subsidizing the needs of workers outside the health-care sector. 

• With ONA representing more than 2,000 public health members across Ontario, we are proud to bring bargaining power, support and solidarity to the table.  

We are delivering province-wide gains that protect fairness, strengthen compensation, and recognize the vital work our public health members do in our communities.  

We have a long history of winning improvements through collective bargaining and actions, including: 

• A key win in eastern Ontario, ensuring a member who worked during a holiday received premium holiday compensation, plus setting the precedent moving forward. 

• Strong above-average wage increases, retroactive pay, new and expanded mental health coverage, higher paramedical and health-care spending accounts, added shift and leadership premiums, improved flexibility around time off, and expanded sick leave for family care. 

• Meaningful improvements such as enhanced health and safety language, pension access for casual and temporary workers, mileage coverage, and stronger self-scheduling provisions 

• Pioneered the Professional Responsibility Clause to address issues of unsafe patient care, workload and practice concerns. This has helped members secure more staff, safer workplaces, improved quality of care, necessary equipment and supplies, better documentation and input in management decisions to improve workload and patient care. 

• Strong advocacy in every part of health care, including long-term care, public health, the community, industry, and clinics. Look no further than our powerful campaigns to support our members from Victorian Order of Nurses, public health and primary care. 

Taken together, these wins show our power: when we push back, we protect our members. At ONA, your voice won’t get lost. Instead, you set the direction of our campaigns and lobbying efforts to improve wages, working conditions, and health care because it is our specialty.    

Public health units bargain independently, not provincially. All proposals are driven by you and your colleagues. ONA’s process is unique and ensures member involvement in every step of the way.  

• You elect your committee from the membership, regardless of classification. 

• You can work with ONA staff to assist in building confidence, power and knowledge to fight for you and your coworkers’ key priorities. 

• When the bargaining team is ready to come back with a collective agreement, you and your coworkers vote on whether to ratify it or send it back. 
   

Your participation is essential in the bargaining process because ONA is a member-led, grassroots organization.  

ONA dues are monthly, flat and predictable. Overtime, extra shifts, or premiums won’t increase your ONA dues. With percentage-based dues that the other unions have, every extra dollar you earn means more taken off your pay. Our dues include legal support, liability insurance, critical illness and long-term disability coverage: no extra or hidden fees. Members vote on the dues structure and any increases. ONA dues are nearly 100 per cent tax deductible, meaning you can claim them and receive a portion back at year end. 

ONA is the largest health-care union in Ontario, with 68,000+ members and 18,000 nursing students. That strength means your voice is heard at the workplace, in the media, and at Queen’s Park. As an ONA member, you also get access to a wide range of supports and services, all part of your membership without added fees like other unions: 

• Local and province campaigns and actions to fight for the issues that matter to you. 

• Professional practice and workplace support. 

• Health and safety, WSIB and human rights and equity specialists. 

• Legal assistance and malpractice insurance  

• • With LEAP coverage, you don’t need RNAO PLP. With LEAP, you have the same or better coverage. The RNAO PLP requires payment upfront and reimbursement for coverage beyond civil litigation. 

• Disability and critical illness coverage. This coverage is in addition to employer-sponsored benefits. 

• Education, training, and member events and much more. 

No, ONA is not just a union for nurses and doesn’t only focus on hospitals. ONA is a union that is sector specific, with a single focus on health care. Specializing gives ONA a huge edge in collective bargaining because we know our members’ lived experiences best. We represent health-care professionals of all classifications, in various sectors including long-term care, public health, the community, industry and clinics and hospitals. 

ONA dues are monthly, flat and predictable. Working overtime? Picking up extra shifts? Earning premiums? Your ONA dues will not change. With percentage-based dues, every extra dollar you earn means more taken off your pay. Flat dues mean no surprises on your pay cheque.  
 
Your union dues also are spent on issues that matter to you and are not used to subsidize the needs of workers outside the health-care sector.

ONA always negotiates to maintain and gain, not lose. Everything that you currently have, ONA will work to get into a collective agreement and then make improvements.  

Following the vote and certification of ONA as the bargaining unit, a transition agreement must be negotiated and ratified first.  

ONA will review and analyze all collective agreement language and entitlements from all  predecessor branches. We will require disclosure of updated documentation and information from the employer to prepare for bargaining. Negotiations for a first Collective Agreement will proceed including harmonized compensation, working provisions and other demands you identify along the way.