The largest and longest nurses’ strike in the city’s history is continuing at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (NYP) after nurses there decisively rejected the hospital chain’s contract offer 3,099 to 867.
About 10,500 other nurses are starting to return to work today, ending the strike at three Manhattan hospitals run by Mt Sinai and at Montefiore Medical Center facilities in the Bronx. Those nurses overwhelmingly voted to approve contracts that maintained staffing ratio language, beat back additional health care costs, and added some protection from workplace violence and misuse of artificial intelligence.
At NYP, nurses expressed anger at the leadership of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) for pushing the contract vote over the objections of the negotiating team there.
Sophie Boland, a bargaining committee member, said the committee had just met with members when they heard they would be forced to vote on the deal to end the month-long strike. Members had agreed “this was going to be a dangerous contract to go back into the hospital with,” she said. “Because we still don’t have the staffing protections we need.”
The head of the negotiating committee got on Instagram Live to say that the committee was still recommending a no vote on the deal, which came about through mediation between the hospital system and NYSNA leadership over last weekend. Members agreed, voting “no” by 73 percent.
“The proposal did not fix our core issues,” said another bargaining committee member, Tonya Fisher, an emergency department nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, citing chronic short-staffing and protection against layoffs. “We have already seen what happens when protections are weak.”
The 4,200 NYP nurses are continuing to picket the hospitals in upper Manhattan, where they’ve been on strike since January 12. They are calling for support on the picket lines from other nurses, union members, and the public, in a showdown with NYP, the…
Auteur: Jenny Brown
