Question 1

Strength Through Action: Oversight That Ensures Implementation

Accepted Answer

Passing landmark laws is only the first step.
As Board members, STRONGER TOGETHER will ensure that ONA continues to prioritize implementation, enforcement, and impact by:
 • Setting clear organizational priorities for full implementation of Oregon’s staffing law.
    • Adopt annual Board-approved enforcement benchmarks tied directly to HB 2697.
    • Require quarterly reports from ONA staff, Government Relations, and the Staffing Law Task Force on progress, barriers, and statewide compliance trends.
    • Ensure the strategic plan explicitly includes implementation milestones so enforcement stays central—not optional.
 • Directing ONA’s advocacy and communication teams to hold employers and state agencies publicly accountable for compliance.
    • Empowering staff to issue public statements, reports, and media responses when employers violate the law.
    • Supporting bargaining units with clear escalation pathways for staffing violations.
    • Coordinating statewide pressure campaigns when systemic noncompliance emerges.

• Tracking measurable outcomes through Board reporting and member feedback to ensure resources are driving real change at the bedside.
    • Review standardized statewide data dashboards showing staffing audits, grievances, investigations, missed breaks, unsafe assignments, and other indicators.
    • Use regular member surveys, staffing committee reports, and town halls to gather frontline experiences.
    • Adjust ONA’s priorities based on what members report happening in real time.

The Board’s role is to keep the union focused and strategic, ensuring ONA’s laws and victories translate into better working conditions and safer care statewide.

Question 2

Safe, Respectful Workplaces: Setting Direction and Accountability

Accepted Answer

ONA has been a national leader in improving safety and respect for healthcare workers.
As Board members, STRONGER TOGETHER will:
 • Champion statewide enforcement of workplace violence prevention laws through policy guidance, public advocacy, and partnerships with other labor organizations.
    • Direct ONA staff to actively monitor hospital and clinic compliance with Oregon’s workplace-violence statutes.
    • Create Board-level expectations for WPV training standards and reporting practices across bargaining units.
    • Strengthen external partnerships with AFSCME, OFNHP, SEIU, AFT, and other unions to align policy efforts and statewide campaigns.

• Oversee reporting systems and member engagement tools that make it easier for healthcare workers to speak up and be heard.
    • Ensuring ongoing improvement to the ADO system, workplace-violence reporting pathways, and digital reporting tools.
    • Requiring ONA to produce regular statewide WPV trend reports so members can see the impact of their reporting.
    • Setting expectations for timely follow-up when members raise safety concerns.
 • Hold ONA accountable for ensuring all programs, campaigns, and communications reflect a culture of safety, dignity, and respect.
    • Review each major ONA initiative: education, advocacy, communications, organizing, through a safety and dignity lens.
    • Ensure that Board-approved messaging centers respect for healthcare workers and addresses the realities frontline staff face daily.
    • Direct staff to prioritize proactive, not reactive, approaches to workplace safety.

Our commitment is to maintain a governance culture that prioritizes worker well-being and directs the union’s resources toward protecting every member on every shift.

Question 3

Leadership That Reflects Every Member

Accepted Answer

A strong Board must represent the full diversity of ONA; geographically, professionally, and generationally.
The STRONGER TOGETHER slate brings together leaders from every corner of Oregon — from Bend to Medford, Portland to Salem and Eugene — representing large and small bargaining units, rural and urban communities, and both represented and non-represented members.

We will:
 • Ensure broad representation in Board decisions by keeping regional and professional diversity central to governance.
    • Prioritize a mix of acute care, community health, outpatient, rural, urban, and specialty practice voices in committees and task forces.
    • Ensure that decisions are informed by members across Oregon, not just major metropolitan regions.
    • Engage represented and non-represented members in statewide discussions so all perspectives help shape Board direction.

• Mentor new leaders by pairing experienced Board members with emerging voices and supporting leadership development across the state.
    • Creating member leader training that helps new and aspiring leaders build skills, confidence, and statewide networks.
    • Expanding leadership pathways through steward training, statewide committees, task forces, and professional development opportunities.
    • Making leadership accessible by ensuring rural healthcare workers, night-shift team members, and those in smaller units have fair and equitable opportunities to participate and lead..
 •  Increase open communication with members and bargaining units through consistent engagement, transparent reporting, and meaningful two-way dialogue that builds trust and shared understanding.
    • Hold regular virtual open office hours so members statewide can speak directly with Board members.
    • Host quarterly statewide leadership Q&A sessions to maintain real-time connection.
    • Provide transparent Board summaries, clear updates, and ongoing opportunities for members to ask questions and shape priorities.
    • Strengthen member feedback loops so communication is not just one-way but a continuous, collaborative exchange.

We believe governance should mirror the people it serves — inclusive, balanced, and rooted in the lived experience of healthcare workers.

Question 4

Protecting What We’ve Won and Planning What Comes Next

Accepted Answer

The Board’s role is to look ahead, to safeguard what members have achieved and prepare for the challenges to come.

STRONGER TOGETHER will:
 • Align ONA’s strategic plan and legislative agenda with stronger enforcement of existing victories, from safe staffing to workplace safety.
    • Grounded in integrity and professional excellence, we will:
       • Prioritize enforcement of staffing and workplace-violence laws within ONA’s strategic plan.
       • Ensure our legislative agenda strengthens the protections our members have already won.
       • Direct staff to focus advocacy resources on the areas where enforcement gaps put healthcare professionals and patients at risk.

• Set long-term policy direction for future advocacy around fair pay, safe workloads, equitable access to care, and sustainable healthcare systems. 
    • Guided by leadership, respect, and DEI, we will:
       • Build multi-year policy priorities rooted in member feedback and frontline realities.
       • Identify emerging threats early, staffing shortages, corporate consolidation, rural access challenges and plan proactive strategies.
       • Ensure ONA leads statewide conversations about equitable healthcare access and workforce stability.

• Guide ONA’s approach to statewide coalition work, ensuring that partnerships and endorsements advance our members’ values and strengthen our influence.
    • Building on solidarity and integrity, we will:
       • Partner with labor organizations, patient-safety groups, and healthcare coalitions whose missions align with ONA values.
       • Ensure all endorsements and collaborations reinforce the principles of safe care, worker dignity, and professional excellence.
       • Strengthen ONA’s statewide and national presence to elevate and amplify the voices of Oregon’s nurses and healthcare professionals.

• Encourage innovation; new ways to engage members, leverage data, and expand our reach across Oregon’s healthcare system.
    • In the spirit of leadership and professional excellence, we will:
       • Support modern communication tools, data dashboards, and member-engagement platforms that increase transparency.
       • Develop innovative models for member education, digital organizing, and statewide connection.
       • Promote creative, inclusive approaches that reflect the diversity of Oregon’s nursing workforce.

Rooted in ONA’s values and focused on the future, the Board protects today’s gains while building the strength we need for tomorrow.

Question 5

Transparency, Accountability, and Fiscal Stewardship

Accepted Answer

Members deserve a Board that governs with integrity and openness.

STRONGER TOGETHER is committed to building confidence and trust through action by:
 • Ensuring transparency in Board decisions, including regular public summaries of actions, votes, and strategic priorities.
    • Provide timely, accessible summaries after each Board meeting so members know what decisions were made and why.
    • Use clear, plain-language communication instead of insider terminology.
    • Maintain open channels for questions and feedback so members feel informed and included.
 • Strengthening accountability structures so that executive leadership and staff are aligned with ONA’s mission and measurable goals.
    • Establishing clearer expectations for reporting, timelines, and performance benchmarks.
    • Using measurable objectives to evaluate progress toward Board-approved strategic goals.
    • Ensuring committees and workgroups follow consistent structures that support transparency and accountability.
 • Exercising fiscal responsibility, ensuring that member dues are invested strategically in programs that grow power, protect workers, and sustain ONA for decades to come.
    • Review program effectiveness using financial dashboards, outcome measures, and return-on-investment assessments.
    • Prioritize investments in organizing, enforcement, leadership development, and member support.
    • Ensure that spending aligns with ONA’s mission, values, and long-term strategic plan.
 • Anticipating financial challenges facing all unions nationally and ensuring ONA remains prepared through prudent budgeting, strong reserves, and strategic growth.
    • Monitor national trends, legal challenges, and economic shifts that affect union stability.
    • Build and maintain financial reserves that protect ONA in periods of uncertainty.
    • Support sustainable growth strategies, including member engagement, leadership pipelines, and coalition partnerships.

Transparency is leadership in practice and it starts at the Board table.

Question 6

Growing Power and Deepening Solidarity

Accepted Answer

ONA’s organizing success has transformed Oregon’s labor landscape. As Board members, STRONGER TOGETHER will advance this through:
 • Support continued organizing growth by ensuring ONA’s resources and staff are equipped to bring new members into our union family.
    • Prioritize staffing, training, and tools that help ONA engage and organize new workplaces.
    • Strengthen onboarding and support for newly organized bargaining units.
    • Provide leaders with clearer structures, mentorship, and resources to build strong local programs.
 • Promote strategic alliances with other labor partners like AFSCME, SEIU, OFNHP and AFT to amplify healthcare workers’ voices.
    • Coordinating joint campaigns that protect workers, improve safety, and strengthen collective bargaining.
    • Aligning on legislative priorities to increase statewide impact.
    • Building shared strategies that elevate healthcare worker power across Oregon.
 • Represent ONA nationally by collaborating with union-led states within the American Nurses Association to make ANA more supportive of collective bargaining and pro-worker policy.
    • Work with labor strong ANA states to influence national policy direction.
    • Advance national recognition that collective bargaining strengthens the voice, safety, and professional autonomy of every healthcare professional.
    • Strengthen ONA’s national presence to ensure Oregon’s healthcare professionals have a strong voice in shaping national healthcare policy.
 • Model solidarity across professions and communities, ensuring that ONA’s advocacy reflects justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in practice.
A strong Board keeps the focus on growing power, not just preserving it.

Question 7

One Union, One Future

Accepted Answer

STRONGER TOGETHER represents the next generation of ONA leadership: experienced enough to guide through complexity, grounded enough to stay member-focused, and visionary enough to build what comes next.

We believe the Board must:
 • Lead with collaboration and purpose. Govern with integrity, accountability, and transparency. Focus on progress that advances our mission, elevates our profession, empowers those we represent, and delivers lasting impact.
    • Prioritize DEI in policymaking, partnerships, and internal structures.
    • Support collaboration with LPNs, APRNs, CNAs, techs, and other healthcare workers to advance shared goals.
    • Elevate the experiences of rural healthcare professionals, BIPOC members, LGBTQ+ members, and historically marginalized communities across our union.

Demonstrate leadership that is focused and guided by unity, choosing collaboration, accountability, and progress for every member in every region as we continue to develop and grow our union in all disciplines of healthcare supporting the communities we serve across our state.

ONA’s foundation is solid, and was built by members who fight for each other and for the patients we serve.
Our job as Board leaders is to protect that foundation, strengthen it, and ensure our union’s mission endures for decades to come.

Our Vision for ONA’s Future

STRONGER TOGETHER is committed to steady, transparent, member-driven leadership that protects these achievements and ensures they deliver real results for every workplace, every shift, and every patient we serve.

EVERY MEMBER.
EVERY REGION.
EVERY VOICE.

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