Ontario Nurses' Association expresses grave concerns amidst contract talks with hospital CEOs

TORONTO, Jan. 17, 2025 /CNW/ - Five days of talks between the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) and the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) have yet to result in a negotiated new contract for the province's 60,000+ hospital-sector nurses and health-care professionals.

"ONA entered into these talks determined to negotiate a new contract," says ONA Provincial President Erin Ariss, RN. "The last time a deal was negotiated was a full 14 years ago. Unfortunately, what the OHA has tabled would have unimaginable consequences for the nursing and health-care professional workforce and devastating outcomes for patients."

The top bargaining priority for ONA's front-line members is the implementation of registered nurse (RN) staffing ratios. Staffing ratios make timely, quality care easier to access for patients, and help keep nurses and health-care professionals from leaving their jobs in severely understaffed hospitals that take a heavy toll on them and the care they are able to provide.

"Hospital CEOs and the Ford government have been intentionally understaffing our public hospitals to justify selling off public services to private, for-profit clinics," Ariss notes. "Staffing ratios are the real solution to the crisis in our hospitals, not for-profit health care."

Ariss adds that for too long, nurses and health-care professionals have been expected to stay silent and work under increasingly impossible conditions. "Hospital CEOs are pushing for changes that would decimate the health workforce, and their proposal has the fingerprints of the Ford government all over it.

"We are no longer staying silent. We are fighting back. Hospital CEOs and this government are on notice: if they pursue this agenda, they had better be prepared for the fight of their lives," she says.

The two sides head to mediation on January 29 and 30. ONA members will be holding a series of escalating actions in the coming weeks.

ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

SOURCE Ontario Nurses' Association

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