ONA Press Release - May 2, 2014
TORONTO – Approximately 58,000
registered nurses working in Ontario hospitals – members of the Ontario Nurses’
Association (ONA), have received an arbitration decision, resolving a dispute
with Ontario hospitals over the nurses’ collective agreement.
The two-year award provides a
1.4-per-cent wage increase in each year – barely, if at all – keeping up with
the rate of inflation.
“Our registered nurses have already
sacrificed wages with a two-year wage freeze in the last contract,” said ONA
President Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN. “Registered nurses had every expectation of
moving back to more appropriate compensation that reflects the value of RNs to
health care and would have been more in line with increases given to other
professional essential service workers and our Canadian nursing
counterparts.”
Haslam-Stroud says that ONA is
extremely disappointed that the award fails to provide any benefit or premium
improvements, which have always been important feature of any round of
negotiations. She notes that this contract is balancing the provincial budget on
the backs of registered nurses.
The arbitration decision did hold one
piece of good news for newly graduated registered nurses. “We are pleased to see that the arbitrator
rejected all of the Ontario Hospital Association’s proposals, including a
three-per-cent cut to the start rate for new RN graduates,” she said. “This
would have resulted in our new RNs considering their options to practice in
other jurisdictions, rather than be the lowest-paid RNs in all of
English-speaking Canada.”
Haslam-Stroud notes the growing body
of research proving the value that RN care brings and says that, “clearly, we
have yet to reach the point of reflecting the value of RN care, both in cost
savings and the decrease in patient death rates, in Ontario’s nurses’
contracts,” she said. “Our patients understand the value of our nurses; their
employer does not.”
ONA is the union representing
60,000 registered nurses and allied health professionals, as well as more than
14,000 nursing student affiliates providing care in hospitals, long-term care
facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.
Click the link to access the award summary and other documents:
Hospital ONA Members: Meetings while be held with your Bargaining Unit Presidents to answer any questions - please watch for notices at your facilities.
