Some 20,000 nurses representing 12 hospitals at 13 areas unfold throughout all 5 boroughs are getting ready to ring within the new yr with a normal strike that might final for 10 days.
Members of the New York State Nurses Affiliation voted overwhelmingly earlier this month in favor of placing if their contract calls for will not be met by the top of 2025.
“We became nurses because we care about our patients deeply and do not take striking lightly,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans stated. “It is always a last resort. But it’s shameful that instead of trying to protect care and settle a fair contract, hospitals are dragging their feet and making proposals that would seriously erode care in this city.”
Bronx hospitals affected by the upcoming strike embody Montefiore Medical Middle and BronxCare Well being System.
In Manhattan, nurses at Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai Hospital, Columbia College Medical Middle and Mount Sinai West voted to affix the strike.
And nurses at Flushing Hospital Medical Middle in Queens voted to strike.
Affected Brooklyn hospitals embody Brooklyn Hospital Middle, Interfaith Medical Middle, Wyckoff Heights Medical Middle, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Middle and Maimonides Medical Middle.
Nurses at Richmond College Medical Middle in Staten Island are additionally anticipated to strike.
The union is demanding elevated safety at hospitals, and preventing again in opposition to well being care executives, as they search to roll again provisions nurses say would permit hospitals to overload them with sufferers.
“Instead of cutting from executive pay, risky new technologies, and money-making investments, they are proposing to compromise safe patient care by rolling back the staffing standards nurses worked hard to achieve,” NewYork-Presbyterian pediatric emergency room nurse Aretha Morgan stated. “Nurses won’t stand by and watch them try to unravel staffing standards that have made such massive strides in helping hospitals cut back on wait times, reduce nurse burnout, improve patient care, and more.”
Since contract negotiations started this summer time, nurses have hosted speak-outs and rallies exterior hospitals and at Metropolis Corridor, the place healthcare suppliers have been joined by metropolis council members together with Mercedes Narcisse, Carmen De La Rosa and Lynn Schulman in calling for his or her contract calls for to be met.
“As a proud nurse and as Chair of the Hospitals Committee of the New York City Council, I know the difference that safe staffing and real investment in patient care make,” Narcisse stated. “Hospitals must do their part, invest in their workforce, protect services, and ensure that every patient receives the care they deserve.”
The union additionally organized vigils exterior Mount Sinai Hospital after administration retaliated in opposition to nurses who raised security considerations within the wake of an lively shooter risk on the Manhattan medical heart.
The approaching labor motion follows a 2023 strike that noticed 7,000 nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital stroll off the job after contraction negotiations broke down.
The strike, which lasted for 3 days, ended after the 2 hospitals agreed to calls for that included a pay enhance and hiring further nurses.
