Erin Ariss, RN
President

President’s Message

When faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, it’s easy to give up the fight. Not so for ONA and our members.

The past two years and more have seen too many moments of horror, tragedy and outrage. From a province entering a global pandemic unprepared and a provincial government that not only failed to protect those of us on the front lines of health care, but leveraged the emergency to worsen our working conditions, there have been no lack of sad moments. Now we see this government using the subsequent exodus of nurses as an excuse to implement its goal of privatizing our health-care system.

Instead of giving up, ONA and our members are taking a deep breath and fighting back with new determination. We have rediscovered our feistiness, and are celebrating ONA’s 50th anniversary stronger and more determined than ever.

As we meet for Biennial Convention and have a much-deserved chance to celebrate, I want to personally thank our members for not only entrusting me to be your Provincial President, but for answering my call to become more outspoken and politically active than ever.
There have been rallies, pickets, impassioned speeches and more signatures on anti-privatization health-care petitions than I hoped was possible.

We are standing together in solidarity again and again to push back against our employers and the Ford government and its determination to destroy our publicly funded and delivered health-care system. This government is willing to sacrifice our patients’, residents’ and clients’ access to quality health care in favour of profit for greedy corporate private clinics and health-care providers.

We’re having none of it.

I am so proud of our members. I have often said that we nurses and health-care professionals are not martyrs or victims; we are a highly educated workforce, who are also strong and united. Your support of this union and your courage in speaking the truth to Ontarians has shown what you are made of and will make a difference.

I have always believed that ONA is the best health-care union in this country. I am excited to see how our renewed energy and determination plays out over the coming years, as ONA transforms to better meet your current and future needs. I can feel the new energy and sense of optimism as I speak with more members.

It was my goal as your new President that ONA enter into a new era of passion, determination and equity for all. We have taken our collective anger and outrage and channeled it to do what we all entered our professions for — to advocate for our patients, residents and clients.

From hitting the streets of Toronto for an all-out picket action during hospital bargaining to calling on our health-care CEOs to join us in the fight to save public health care, you are answering the call.

Thank you for joining me and your dedicated Board of Directors, ONA leaders and staff on this journey. Here’s to our next 50 years!

Andrea Kay, RN
Chief Executive Officer

CEO’s Message

This is a year of milestones, both for ONA and in health care.

As we celebrate the milestone 50th anniversary of ONA, the union founded by and for nurses, which now also includes health-care professionals, we also face a milestone in Ontario’s health-system: the fight to save publicly funded and delivered quality care.

In 2023, the full picture of the Ford government’s plan to destroy public health care became clear. The anti-union, anti-nurse policies, such as Bill 124, that created a crisis in health care were clearly part of a deliberate plan on the part of this government to implement its privatization scheme.

This fight has united ONA, our members and leaders, Board of Directors and staff as never before. The past few years of challenges has, at times, left us all exhausted. Yet much like the nurses from five decades ago who rose up and created ONA, we have a sense of renewed determination.

The pandemic forced ONA to pivot, to innovate, to prioritize and to become united as a team. We did so in 2020, and are doing so now more than ever.

For instance, your incredibly dedicated ONA Board of Directors, managers and staff are making excellent progress in implementing our Strategic Plan. ONA is focused on ensuring that we meet your expectations and priorities.

Just as you, ONA members, have stepped up and found your voices to call out this government, your ONA staff has come together to fight alongside you.

While ONA has undergone a number of changes since our last Biennial Convention, we have done so with dedication and professionalism. Current ONA President Erin Ariss is shaking things up in the best way. She is out in the trenches, talking openly with members, ensuring transparency.

We have had a number of wins since the last Biennial, the most significant being the ruling that Bill 124 is unconstitutional. Three long years after Premier Doug Ford passed this legislation, ONA was able to return to the table and push for higher wages and benefits. ONA will not give up the fight for better wages, better staffing and better care.

We are a united team, and we strive to always do our very best for you. We believe, as you do, that a high-quality, publicly delivered and publicly funded health-care system is an invaluable asset. Nurses and health-care professionals are the very heart of that system. No matter what the Ford government and your employers throw at you, we have your back.

Happy anniversary, ONA. Your staff team of nurses, IT professionals, finance and accounting staff, Labour Relations Officers, administration and others are here for you.

Thank you to every one of you for your dedication. Let’s keep up the fight, and win.

Strategic Plan

Created with members at its heart, ONA’s first ever five-year Strategic Plan was officially launched at the 2021 Biennial Convention.

The Strategic Plan was based on feedback from deep consultations with members with varying degrees of union involvement, leaders and staff from fall 2020 to early summer 2021. They told us what is important to them, along with their hopes for ONA’s future, through a series of surveys, workshops, focus groups and one-on-one interviews.

Receiving unanimous Board approval in June 2021, the Strategic Plan includes a new Mission, Vision and Values, which were ratified by 98.5 per cent of ONA’s voting delegates at the 2021 Biennial, as well as 22 actions that fall within six strategic priorities: Members Informed, Members Supported, Stronger Bargaining Units, Telling Ontarians the Truth, Everyone Included and Our Work, For You.

Critical Guiding Documents

The next phase involved the creation of three critical guiding documents to help steward ONA through our strategic planning work:

1. The Implementation Direction Statement by the Board: The Board identified nine of the 22 actions to be prioritized in the near-term.
2. The Multi-Year Action Plan (MYAP): Senior staff co-lead the development of 22 detailed MYAPs that align with and support the 22 actions of the Strategic Plan. All 22 actions have defined measures of success to help determine if ONA is making progress.
3. Accountability Framework 2021-2026: ONA’s Quality of Service to Members Committee provided oversight to a smaller working group of their committee, the Quality Committee Working Group (QCWG), which created an Accountability Framework of high-level definitions and measures of our union’s wellbeing. The framework is like a public agreement between ONA members and the organization that details how ONA will be accountable for ensuring our wellbeing and is delivering on our Strategic Plan. It includes measures that define success for each of ONA’s Mission, Vision and Values and six strategic priorities, as well as the accountabilities for the Board of Directors, elected leaders, managers and staff, and grassroot members.

Measures of success provide ONA with information about our union’s wellbeing and implementation progress, which supports transparency with members and accountability. The results can help us navigate problems, learn what works and what doesn’t, and make better decisions.

From January to June 2023, the QCWG was tasked with conducting an inventory of what, if any, indicators could be measured from the Accountability Framework, and what needed to be developed to measure and report.

Their work culminated in a recommendation approved by the Board of Directors in June 2023 for ONA to conduct a membership survey every two years, launched at Biennial, for the chief purpose of collecting data and reporting on member-related measures in the Accountability Framework, and to release the results at the following Provincial Leadership Meeting (PLM).

The PLM was the chosen venue because it is ONA’s best attended annual event and has the most representation across all sectors. The PLM also provides the opportunity, through its design, for engagement by one of our most critical stakeholder groups: Bargaining Unit Presidents.

Biennial 2023 marks the first official launch of our membership survey, which will provide us with a report on some of our measures. We look forward to sharing the results at the PLM in 2024.

Strategic Planning Work is Underway!

Since the Strategic Plan’s adoption in 2021, ONA has been working on our strategic planning priorities. Highlights under each strategic priority include:

Our Strategic Plan Priorities

Empowering you with the information members value

Supporting you to achieve better work conditions

Equipping your Bargaining Unit representatives to support and work with you

Sharing what you know about the state of the health-care system

Creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive union

Excellence for you from ONA’s Board and staff

Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Action Plan

As part of the Strategic Plan priority, Everyone Included, ONA launched an ambitious four-year Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression (ARAO) Action Plan in May 2022.

The Action Plan is the direct result of a call to action from our members, elected leaders and staff with lived experiences of intersectional forms of racism, including anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, discrimination and acts of exclusion. It contains seven priority areas and 34 action items.

In Year 0 of the Action Plan (May 2022 to April 2023), the staff Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Working Group (ARAOWG) and internal stakeholders, including the Anti-Racism Advisory (ARA) Team and the Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group (RAPWG), along with the ARAO Lead Consultant, worked to fulfill Year 0 priorities one to seven.

Key Highlights from ONA’s Year 0 ARAO Work

ONA has invested resources to build our internal capacity, strengthen our infrastructure and create sustainable systemic changes within our operations, our member services, member engagement, work environments and outreach to diverse communities. This work is making a real difference.

Communications

From advertising to email, ONA continues to tell Ontarians the truth with high-performing and impactful communications.

Advertising

ONA’s hard-hitting campaigns tell it like it is.

ONA’s advertising is a fearless public voice for the realities facing front-line nurses and health-care professionals, targeting the government more directly than ever before:

• Spring 2022: Heading into a provincial election, print, radio and social media ads highlighted Nurses Fighting for Change amidst staffing shortages and chronic underfunding.
• Fall 2022: After many summer hospital unit closures, print and social media ads held Premier Doug Ford and fledgling Health Minister Sylvia Jones responsible for the damage.
• Spring 2023: As Premier Ford revealed his privatization plans, Nurses Talk Truth became the rallying cry for a stark print, transit and social media campaign focused on poignant symbols: a wrecking ball, gambling dice and more.
• Fall 2023: The spotlight is on members in video ads featuring real and unvarnished voices from Ontario’s front line.

ONA is always on the front page!

The public is listening, watching and responding. Market research reveals up to 93 per cent of readers recalled seeing ONA’s top-performing print ad (Toronto Star, December 3, 2022), which is 72 per cent higher than the Canadian average. Social media, radio and transit shelter ads reached millions of people across the province. They engaged, visited the campaign websites, and shared our message.

Website

ONA’s main website remains a top resource for members and the public alike. It is a dynamic space for content and materials related to member-driven campaigns and actions, while content improvements have streamlined the user experience. From January 2022 to July 2023, ona.org had more than 1.427 million sessions and 2.37 million page views.

Media Relations

ONA’s profile and presence in news media is industry leading. We are a trusted source for the most prominent journalists in provincial politics and health care. From September 2022 to September 2023, ONA received roughly 11,300 mentions in news media, with more than 60 per cent in broadcast sources. These sources had a cumulative potential reach of 2.21 billion viewers, listeners or readers. Coverage for this period was driven by ONA’s Bill 124 Charter challenge, bargaining actions, arbitration decisions, and the Hastings and Prince Edward Public Health strike.

Email

Email has emerged as the preferred communications channel for ONA members. Email open rates remain exceptionally strong, well above commonly reported benchmarks. During this period, the monthly eBulletin continued, with four new quarterly email newsletters providing updates on professional practice, health and safety, education, and human rights and equity. Member email preferences can be set at ona.org/enews.

Social Media

ONA has seen dramatic growth on social media, driven by member actions and dynamic design. As of September 2023, ONA has more than 80,000 followers across Facebook, X (formerly Twitter)
and Instagram. During this period, ONA clocked our highest-performing content ever, led by our Bill 124 Charter challenge and campaigns across the province. From September 2022 to September 2023, ONA recorded more than 30.46 million impressions and 1.698 million engagements on our posts. Photo and video content continue to drive the most engagement.

Key events and highlights from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023

For the previous year, see the 2022 Annual Report.

Member Mobilizing

Our member mobilizing team and work has grown substantially over the past two years as we continue to empower members to make workplace and political change by organizing their fellow members and building campaigns to win!

Hospital Bargaining Campaign

One of ONA’s biggest campaigns to date, engaging thousands of members, launched in early 2023 to coincide with hospital central bargaining with the Ontario Hospital Association. Aimed at employers and the Ford government, the message was clear: nurses and health-care professionals can’t provide better care without a better contract.

Working with Local leaders, ONA planned a series of coordinated collective actions, and disseminated this information via emailers, a dedicated webpage (ona.org/bettercare) and social media, and during our newly created Hospital Contract Action Team meetings, opened to all hospital members.

Actions began during the first week of talks on February 2 with members wearing bright stickers in support of our bargaining team, and escalated from there, including: All-out pickets on February 23 to seek community support at 40 locations throughout the province; an all-out shut-down protest a week later outside the Toronto hotel where mediation was taking place, followed by a march to Queen’s Park; a powerful “die-in” in the shadow of the Ontario Legislature on April 5 to symbolize that understaffing and underfunding are having a deadly impact on health care; and a community day of action on April 23 where more than 7,500 signatures were gathered for a petition that was later read in the record in the Legislature by opposition MPPs.

Throughout our campaign, members were strongly supported by our allies and were a visible presence at more than 30 Ontario Federation of Labour Enough is Enough day of action rallies on June 3, speaking out against the Ford government’s destructive agenda.

We were clearly heard with Arbitrator Kaplan issuing a favourable award that sets a precedent for bargaining in other sectors. These actions also laid the groundwork for future challenges as we continue to harness the collective power of our members!

A Bargaining Unit Success Story

We learned what we are capable of with a united front, TOH members said of their campaign.

Inspired by the incredible advocacy shown by members at Hamilton Health Sciences dealing with a similar situation, members at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) fought together against a harmful employer decision — and won!

Early in 2022, TOH announced it was bringing unregulated operating room assistants (ORAs) into the scrub nurse role in operating rooms (ORs) after a 10-week online course, despite the unpredictable nature of OR patients.

OR nurses immediately took their patient safety concerns to management — they were ignored — and sought the assistance of ONA, which helped them plan a push back. That included setting up an Action Committee; writing a strong letter demanding TOH keep ORAs out of the scrub nurse role; and identifying and recruiting trusted and well-respected leaders within their workplace to have one-on-one conversations with members to encourage them to sign the letter, and keep them regularly informed. The hard work paid off, with 84 per cent of the 182 affected nurses signing.

Just before an appointment with the Chief Nursing Executive (CNE) to hand deliver the letter in March 2023, the OR nurses received an email saying management had decided to put the ORA initiative on hold. The members insisted on continuing with the meeting, and soon after, the CNE reached out to arrange another meeting to clarify the ORA initiative. As of press time, TOH has no ORAs in the OR, thanks to the dedication of these members!

Collective Bargaining

Because ONA had the foresight to achieve reopener clauses to seek retroactive wages should Bill 124, which capped wages and benefit improvements at a maximum of one per cent per year for each of three years, be struck down by the courts, we received binding arbitration decisions for affected members (with more on the horizon) when that happened in November 2022.

Legal

As part of the vast array of legal services we provide to support our members, which fall under the umbrella of ONA Legal, we continue to fight back against regressive laws that disregard our collective agreements and bargaining processes with great success.

Bill 124 Charter Challenge

Most significant was the Bill 124 Charter challenge, launched by ONA soon after the Ford government introduced the wage suppressing legislation in late 2019. Joined by fellow unions, ONA argued the bill violated our right to freedom of association and collective bargaining under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

ONA counsel from Cavalluzzo presented these compelling arguments to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice the week of September 12, 2022, and two-and-a-half months later, Justice Markus Koehnen ruled the bill unconstitutional and contrary to section 2(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He held that the law infringes with our right to freedom of association by directly interfering with ONA’s ability to engage in meaningful collective bargaining for our members on compensation and other important issues:

(Bill 124) is not a reasonable limit on a right that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” and as a result, the bill is “to be void and of no effect.

Unfortunately, before 2022 was over, the Ford government appealed the decision, and during a three-day hearing before the Ontario Court of Appeal, which began on June 20, 2023, ONA continued our staunch opposition to the bill. We await the court’s decision.

Three Rulings, Same Result: Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit

In 2020, the Ford government introduced Bill 195, the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, and emergency orders, which permitted employers to disregard collective agreement provisions during the pandemic subject
to limitations.

Like so many nurses and health-care Number of Litigation Cases professionals, public health members at the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit worked tirelessly on the front lines fighting COVID-19 and accumulated significant comp time. The employer tried to rely on the emergency orders under Bill 195 to deprive them of their negotiated right to an overtime payout at time-and-a-half for unused comp time.

ONA fought back and the arbitration decision was in our favour. It found that while the employer could take measures reasonably necessary to respond to COVID-19, it could not avoid the cost consequences of the emergency measures authorized under Bill 195.

The employer applied for judicial review at Divisional Court, but ONA continued our fight and won again! The court found that while cost consequences could be considered, they needed to be reasonably necessary to respond to or prevent the COVID-19 outbreak. In this case, the cost consequences of withholding premium pay were not reasonably necessary, the court ruled in upholding the arbitration decision. The employer tried to appeal this decision to the Court of Appeal and ONA won for a third time, with the court denying the appeal.

Important Arbitration Wins

• Brant Community Health System: This case is another win regarding double-time premium for accepting a call-in that occurs within 24 hours of the end of the previous shift.
• Halton Health Services: Providing availability for additional shifts on weekends is not “requesting weekend work” and does not disentitle nurses from consecutive weekend premiums.
• Southlake Regional Health Centre: The hospital violated the collective agreement and Regulation 241/20 when it failed to correctly pay temporary pandemic pay to ONA members in all classifications.

Number of Litigation Cases

Grievance Management

Handling grievances is the nuts and bolts of what we do as a union. In fact, in collaboration with our dedicated front-line leaders, we work on thousands of member grievances annually, with the goal of reaching a resolution without having to advance to arbitration. Here are three notable recent wins.

Errors in Calculating the Pregnancy and Parental Leave Benefit

In this case, ONA concluded that the employer had been incorrectly calculating the Pregnancy and Parental Leave Supplemental Unemployment Benefit provisions of the collective agreement. The error significantly impacted the total amount paid to ONA members.

Minutes of Settlement between ONA and the employer were finalized, which included a reimbursement provision to 58 ONA members. In total, the employer returned more than $380,000.

Enforcement of Letter of Understanding

ONA argued that the employer was not in compliance with a Letter of Understanding that entitled members to premium pay of up to $5/per hour for having additional nursing skills ($1 for each of five added nursing skills).

The parties unsuccessfully attempted to resolve the dispute during negotiations. A group grievance was filed on behalf of all impacted members.

Minutes of Settlement were reached that included retroactive payments. A nurse with all five added nursing skills would qualify for reimbursement of up to $48,000.

Denial of Benefit Coverage

The employer substituted their insurance carrier and eliminated the provisions of the previous plan that allowed members to enroll in benefits outside of a qualifying life event.

The open enrollment period typically took place for a 30-day period once annually. The employer informed members that they would never be able to enroll in benefits if they did not experience another qualifying life event.

ONA filed several grievances, arguing that the change was unreasonable, not in alignment with the industry standard, and in violation of the collective agreement. We successfully achieved a settlement that included immediate enrollment of all grievors into the plan, education and training for human resources staff, and a process for members to enroll in benefits at any time.

Grievance Statistics from October 1, 2021 to August 31, 2023

LEAP

ONA’s unique Legal Expense Assistance Plan (LEAP) continues to provide stellar representation and assistance to members who face a complaint/report against them at their regulatory college or have a medical condition impacting their ability to practice.

LEAP’s RN Roster

When the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) receives a complaint from a patient or family, or a report from an employer, it does not necessarily investigate every case. The CNO is able to pursue an early resolution option for less serious concerns. About 20 per cent of cases are resolved this way, with the CNO allowing nurses to avoid an investigation if they are willing to reflect on the allegations against them, review the applicable standards and sometimes meet with a CNO representative. These early resolution options avoid the stress, time commitment and uncertain outcome associated with an investigation.

In addition, they are not seen as admissions of wrongdoing and do not appear on the CNO public registrar, Find a Nurse.

In 2022, LEAP created an RN Roster to help with these cases. We have four experienced nurse experts who help members navigate the CNO process and reflect on the allegations against them as they relate to CNO standards.

The RN Roster has been a resounding success: 100 per cent of the cases handled by the RN Roster have successfully resolved at the CNO. In addition, ONA members report that they love working with these expert RNs who understand the pressures they face in their practice settings and empathize with the fact that even the best nurses sometimes receive complaints. One member provided the following feedback:

[The Roster RN] was absolutely amazing. She kept me grounded throughout this whole ordeal. She was there always with a prompt response and advice on how to deal with the situation with dignity and in a professional manner. Great help!

Judicial Review

For several years, LEAP has been complaining to the CNO about undue delays in its investigation process. The CNO was often taking one to three years to investigate complaints or reports against members, and sometimes as much as four or five years. In these files, LEAP regularly made arguments to the CNO’s Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee (ICRC) to dismiss the allegations because of undue delay. The ICRC almost always ignored our arguments.

In 2022, LEAP took the CNO to Divisional Court, asking the court to strike down two ICRC decisions. We argued the decisions were unreasonable because they did not fully consider or respond to our arguments about investigative delay and a disability/human rights issue. In early 2023, we won and the court ordered the matters be sent back to the ICRC for new decisions.

This is a victory for all ONA members. It means that in the future, the ICRC must address the arguments that LEAP Legal Counsel make about investigative delays. The process of challenging the CNO in court also seems to have prompted the CNO to address backlogs and speed up its investigations: in the months since we received the judicial review decision, LEAP is seeing some investigations being completed in as little as two to three months.

Regulatory College Outcomes

September 1, 2021 to August 31, 2023

Professional Practice

ONA’s Professional Practice Team has expanded to meet needs and continues to work collaboratively with Bargaining Unit leaders and members to achieve significant wins that positively impact their work environments and ability to provide quality care.

Independent Assessment Committees

During the time period of this report, Professional Practice Specialists (PPS) led four successful Independent Assessment Committee (IAC) hearings — the last step in our professional responsibility and workload process when all avenues to reach a settlement with the employer have been exhausted — which resulted in recommendations to improve patient care and address workload issues:

• Southlake Regional Health Centre: An IAC delivered 157 recommendations to improve staffing and safety conditions on the medical assessment consultation unit in November 2021. ONA members reported workload concerns on more than 110 Professional Responsibility Workload Report Forms (PRWRFs). Improvements include RN-to-RPN staffing ratios.
• Kingston Health Sciences Centre: RN members in the inpatient mental health and addictions program submitted more than 200 PRWRFs after the employer violated previously agreed-to Minutes of Settlement. The panel heard volumes of evidence and member testimonials of the dangerous working conditions. As a result, in December 2022, an IAC issued 64 recommendations.
• Collingwood General and Marine Hospital: RNs in the emergency department submitted 224 PRWRFs over two years, reporting inadequate baseline staffing, unpredictable volumes and acuity of patients resulting in missed and rationed care. An IAC made 136 recommendations in nine areas in May 2023, including staffing, leadership, retention and education, and orientation.
• Campbellford Memorial Hospital: RNs on the medical surgical unit reported on more than 70 PRWRFs that patient care worsened when the employer laid off four RNs in February 2023. An IAC issued 141 recommendations in August 2023 to improve the workplace and the quality and safety of patient care, including the reinstatement of the four laid-off RNs and an increase to the resource nurse hours to 12 hours per day.

Perth Community Care Centre Long-Term Care Home: As an alternative to an IAC, a mediation process was used, which resulted in binding Minutes of Settlement and 15 agreed-to resolutions, including a full-time resource nurse, and an increase of RAI RN coordinator hours, equipment, education and orientation support.

Ask a Specialist Webinars

ONA’s popular Ask a Specialist Webinars, which provide an opportunity for front-line ONA leaders and grassroot members to learn more about the professional responsibility and workload process by speaking directly to a PPS, continued with 167 sessions and 480 participants attending. The sessions will move to Zoom in 2024 with registration through Access ONA.

Professional Practice Files

Human Rights and Equity

Throughout our history, ONA has been a champion of human rights and equity (HRE) issues, and with the guidance of our dedicated HRE Team, that critical work continues to grow.

ONA’s HRE and ARA Teams come together for a historic meeting of the minds on May 16, 2023.

The team, chaired by the regional Vice-President with the HRE portfolio and comprised of representatives from ONA’s five equity groups (Racialized, Indigenous, Disabilities, Francophone and 2SLGBTQI) and staff, welcomed new members over the past two years and will do so again in 2024. They continued to meet regularly on Zoom and in May 2023, held their first in-person joint meeting with the member Anti-Racism Advisory (ARA) Team to discuss how to work together on common goals.

Health and Safety/LTD/WSIB

ONA continues to work relentlessly to safeguard members from occupational health and safety (OHS) hazards and to ensure they receive the benefits they need and deserve.

Health and Safety

Long-Term Disability

A dedicated Long-Term Disability (LTD) Appeals Team was created in late 2022, which consists of three LTD Appeals Specialists assigned to cover ONA’s five regions. In a brief period of time, the team has had remarkable success advocating for members’ disability benefits and will continue to advance ONA’s mission to defend the rights of and advocate for nurses and health-care professionals.

LTD Cases from January to August 2023

Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)

WSIB Appeals Team Statistics from January 2021 to July 2023

These statistics indicate the remarkable progress the WSIB Appeals Team has made in reducing our waitlist, advocating for our members and the value of benefits we have returned to them. The team is currently engaging in a comprehensive process improvement plan to adapt our process to the proposed changes WSIB intends to introduce in January 2024.

The WSIB Appeals Team continues to monitor policy and adjudicative developments at WSIB concerning COVID-19 and communicable illnesses. Of note, the WSIB opened a consultation process for a new communicable illnesses policy for Ontario workers wherein the team provided feedback from our experiences supporting members.

ONA has received 85 COVID-19-related WSIB appeal files. Of these, 61 have been closed and 24 remain open.

Education and Events

ONA’s Member Education Team (MET) has been steadfast in adapting education for both virtual and in-person formats. The expansion of delivery choice has increased our connection with grassroot members and we continue to ensure they are front and centre in the development of education.

Education

Several workshops have been refreshed, new workshops created, and the eLearning platform, which offers free online education that can be accessed and completed at anytime from anywhere, has been updated.

Our digital workshops continue to be available province-wide as well as to core groups. Most workshops can now be delivered digitally, and ONA continues to see greater success with increased participation of front-line members.

Events

It’s cheers all around after another successful Leadership Summit in September 2023!

In 2022, the March Provincial Leadership Meeting (PLM) and the May Health and Safety Caucuses continued virtually. The following June, the Provincial Coordinators Meeting (PCM) was in person, and for the first time since COVID-19 began, we also resumed our annual Leadership Summit in person in September 2022.

All provincial leadership events continue to be offered in person or as a hybrid of in person and digital (March 2023 PLM, November 2022 PCM and November 2023 Biennial Convention).

How Staff Support You