AURN/ONA Works to Protect Our Rights For almost thirty-five years, AURN nurses have been developing our contractual rights as employees of OHSU. Our contract language has evolved over many years to protect our employment and to legally define the relationship between nurses and OHSU. Do We Have Rights Without a Union? Many nurses in non-union hospitals assume that they have inherent rights as employees to protect them from losing their jobs or from being treated unfairly by the employer. The fact is that, aside from a handful of laws that regulate overtime or protect employees from discrimination based on a protected class (such as race, religion, etc.), nurses in non-union environments are considered "at-will" employees. That means they serve at the pleasure of the employer and may be dismissed or unfairly treated at the will of the employer. Most nurses are surprised to discover this reality and are not usually aware of it until the employer takes some unfair action against them. That's when nurses realize they need to form a union. Our Right to "Just Cause" There are many rights we have won in our contract. Perhaps the most important, though, is the language that protects us from being dismissed "at-will". By contract, OHSU may not fire a nurse except for "just cause", which means that a nurse must have committed an extremely serious practice or behavioral violation that justifies the dismissal and the hospital has to meet "the seven tests of just cause", a fairness measure that is a standard in labor law. Our Right to Union Representation Both our ONA contract and the laws governing union employment protect our right to union representation. AURN nurses have the right to be represented during any investigation into their activities as employees (these are known as "Weingarten Rights", after the federal court ruling that established them). We also have the right to be represented during the Grievance Procedure, the process by which we resolve individual or association conflicts over contract implementation. And, lastly, we have the right to meet with our union representatives in our workplace. Our Right to be Treated Fairly Our ONA contract establishes certain parameters that hold the employer to fairness. These include how nurses are paid (the employer must follow the established pay scale and may not discriminate by awarding money to one nurse and not another); how nurses are scheduled (there must be a system of scheduling and time off that is followed for every nurse); how nurses are held to performance standards (all nurses must be subject to the same standards and may not be disciplined based on subjective criteria that vary from nurse to nurse). These are just a few of the parameters on fairness that you will find in our contract. Our Right to Fair and Equal Access to the Benefits in our Contract There are many employment benefits in our contract that were won by successive AURN Negotiating Teams. These include differentials, premium pays for special work such as on-call, double-back, Critical Need Incentives, double-time for mandatory overtime, health insurance contributions, and many others. We have a right to these benefits and a right to access them in a fair manner. That's why our contract contains language to require the employer to follow certain steps in canceling/curtailing, order or work, assignment of overtime, etc. Take some time to study our contract and to familiarize yourself with its benefits as well as some of the laws that protect us at work.