The body representing over 86,000 Ontario nurses and healthcare professionals sharply condemns a recent arbitration decision, calling it a betrayal of nurses, women, and collective bargaining rights.
Ontario Nurses Association President Erin Ariss, RN, says the decision "sets a new low in the history of bargaining for Ontario nurses."
The decision awarded the nurses a 3 per cent increase in the first year of the two-year deal, and 2.25 per cent in the second year.
The agreement is retroactive to April 1 and expires March 31, 2027.
The Ontario Hospital Association welcomed the decision, saying registered nurses have seen wage increases of 21.25 per cent over the last five years. It will boost the average salary for a registered nurse to $112,476 and cost hospitals $1.13-billion.
While the OHA says it has made significant progress in addressing staffing shortages, the ONA alleges the arbitrator failed to deliver safe staffing ratios and "sends a clear message to Ontario nurses that we do not deserve the same safety in numbers that other front-line workers in dangerous professions, like police and firefighters, are afforded."
"It tells of a workforce that is overwhelmingly women that the unchecked and brutal violence we face every day is acceptable, and our safety is not important," said Ariss. "As nurses, as women, as workers, we will not accept this."
She also decried the lack of job protections in the decision.
"It rejects basic job protection, giving employers free rein to pursue mass layoffs in a province with the lowest number of registered nurses per capita, and ignores nurses' top priority detailed in their arbitration submission," continued Ariss.
The OHA refutes the claim, saying Ontario's hospital workforce has grown by more than 40,000 health care workers since 2019/20, to a total size of over 280,000. It says hospitals have hired 7,500 registered nurses in that period.
"The OHA has a strong record of negotiating multiple collective agreements with each of the other major hospital unions over the past 15 years, but unfortunately, we have not been able to do so with ONA," said a release. "We are hopeful that these parties will be able to work together through the collective bargaining process to reach a negotiated agreement in future rounds."
"Hospital employers and the provincial government have benefitted from more than 15 years of failed bargaining settled by arbitrators that serve the interests of employers, not nurses and working people," Ariss concluded. "This decision once again puts the lie to the false promise that arbitration can deliver fairness without the right to job action. We wholly reject this decision."
Ariss asserts that a record number of ONA members organized in their workplaces and communities in recent months to support their demands.
She said the organization will review the decision in the coming days and consider its next steps.