Dues and Membership

Members’ Frequently Asked Questions:

Dues and Membership

Dues

Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) members pay a flat rate based on their hourly rate of pay.

Effective January 1, 2011, dues paid to ONA for the calendar year January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012 are as noted in the following table:

Dues are only payable for month(s) where there are earnings or if you receive stand by pay or pay for attending a meeting or certification. If there are no earnings in a calendar month then arrears are not collected.

Retroactive pay (top up) is usually for a timeframe where you have worked and paid dues already, so it is not necessary to collect dues for a previously submitted time frame.Therefore, if you receive retroactive pay as part of a negotiated collective agreement settlement you will not have dues deducted.

If there are earnings and no deduction, it is important that you bring this to the immediate attention of your payroll department so that arrears are collected. Services and coverage are only available to you in the months that dues have been submitted.

Please Note: if you work at more then one ONA health agency you do have to pay dues in both places. The employers are legislated to deduct the dues for all members within the Bargaining Unit. ONA does have a dual dues refund policy for the members who meet the policy qualifications. For more details please see the Dual Dues portion of the Members’ Frequently Asked Questions.

If you have specific questions related to dues and membership that have not been answered, please send an email to memberchanges@ona.org

Membership

Being a bona fide and entitled member

A bona fide member is a member who has completed, signed and submitted an Initial Membership Application form.

This form is usually provided to you during your orientation. If this does not occur, you can obtain one from your ONA representative at your place of employment at any time throughout the year.

Becoming a bona fide member is the first step to being considered a member with entitlements. A member with entitlements holds a number of additional membership benefits (e.g. attendance at Union meetings, various ONA mailings, applying for scholarships and bursaries or running or voting in an election, etc.).

Once you become a member with entitlements, your status is maintained in accordance with ONA’s Constitution. You can lose this status for the following reasons:

• There is a greater than 12-month gap in dues payment without being on an approved leave of absence (LOA).
• You no longer hold a job within an ONA Bargaining Unit.
• If you have been suspended or expelled from the Association pursuant to Article 9.

If you have legitimately lost your entitlement status for one of the first two reasons identified above, your entitlements will automatically resume with the resumption of dues payments, provision of LOA information or re-employment within another ONA Bargaining Unit.

Membership cards

All members employed in an ONA agency as identified within the recognition clause of the Collective Agreement are required to pay dues under the Labour Relations Act. In order to receive a membership card and additional membership benefits you must also be considered a member with entitlements.

If you do not receive subsequent mailings this may be because we no longer have a current mailing address or you have lost your entitlement status. To have your record reviewed and provide updated address information, please call the general dues and membership intake line:

Within the Greater Toronto Area 416-964-8833 ext. 2200 or toll-free for the rest of Ontario 1-877-839-6245 ext. 2200.

Please have your ONA ID number ready so we can access your record.

Please Note: We do not share information with the College of Nurses of Ontario. You must provide this information directly to ONA along with your ONA ID or Social Insurance Number for us to update our database.