Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) members staged information pickets across the province on Thursday as negotiations continued with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) on a new contract for hospital nurses.
At least 39 hospitals and Conservative MPP constituency offices across Ontario were expected to have the pickets on Thursday, according to the ONA’s website. Members from several other provincial unions also showed their support.
A number of ONA members could be seen picketing outside of London Health Sciences Centre’s Victoria Hospital campus on Commissioners Road East in London, Ont.
“We’re here because 60,000 hospital nurses across this province are currently in negotiations with the Ontario Hospital Association, and we’re here to show support for our bargaining unit team and raise awareness to the negotiation process,” said Alan Warrington, regional vice president for ONA Region 5, which covers southwestern and midwestern Ontario.
“Wages and staffing are their main priorities at the table. We anticipate that when those are addressed, the ability for Ontarians to access high quality care will be improved.”
Nurses and other public sector workers have had annual wage increases capped at one per cent per year under Bill 124. The law was found unconstitutional late last year by an Ontario court, however the province has filed a notice of intent to appeal.
Contract talks between ONA and OHA began last month. The province-wide pickets are among a series of “escalating actions” thhas taken during negotiations. Nurses don’t have the right to strike.
Nurses have donned stickers at work highlighting ONA’s bargaining priorities, and on March 2, the union will hold a protest in Toronto outside the hotel where contract talks are occurring.
The union feels that with improved wages, the provincial health care system can recruit and retain nurses, and attract those who have left the profession, Warrington said.
“We’ve got a health care crisis, a nursing crisis, and that’s making it harder and harder for patients in this province to access the care that they so greatly deserve,” he said.
A report released in December by the Canadian Health Workforce Network and Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) said health-care workers across Canada were struggling with inadequate staffing, excessive workloads, toxic workplaces, endemic violence, and other issues.
“Feeling disrespected, frustrated and overwhelmed, and lacking control over the way they practice their profession with little to no work-life balance, many nurses have left and many more are contemplating leaving full-time positions,” the report says.
“Some are shifting to casual or part-time work, while others are choosing to work in the private sector, in temporary nursing agencies, or leaving the profession altogether.”
The report cites a national survey released by CFNU early last year which found at least 94 per cent of Canadian nurses reported suffering from burnout, with 45 per cent reporting severe burnout.
The same survey found that more than half of nurses reported considering leaving their current job in the next year, while roughly 20 per cent said they were considering leaving the profession.
The Ontario Hospital Association, which negotiates on behalf of hospitals with several unions, including the ONA, has said it greatly values nurses and hopes to achieve a “voluntarily, mutually agreed-upon collective agreement”.
Talks are set to take place at the end of the month, and any outstanding issues will go to mediation on March 1 and 2. If no agreement is reached, arbitration will take place on May 2 and 3.
Earlier this week, the province introduced a health-care reform bill allowing more private clinics to offer certain publicly-funded surgeries and procedures in a bid to cut down on a massive surgical backlog of more than 200,000 procedures.
Anthony Dale, CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association, said Wednesday that the organization was optimistic the bill would protect against a drain of workers to the expanding private clinics.
Under the bill, new clinics must apply for a licence to operate, and must provide a detailed staffing plan to “protect the stability of doctors, nurses and other health-care workers at public hospitals,” in their applications.
Physicians at the private clinics must also have hospital privileges, meaning they will be accountable to a hospital and must be on its regular on-call team, according to Dale.
— With files from Allison Jones and Liam Casey of The Canadian Press
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