Jan. 8 (UPI) — Nearly 9,000 nurses in New York City are preparing to go on strike Monday at several hospitals because they lack tentative contract agreements, union officials said.
New York State Nurses Association President Nancy Hagans said that number was higher but the union and BronxCare and the Brooklyn Hospital Center struck deals Saturday morning. Those deals will improve staffing levels for overworked nurses and increase wages by at least 5% annually over the next three years.
While the union called the two contract signings “wins,” they still plan to move ahead with strikes with nurses at Montefiore Bronx, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Mount Sinai Morningside and West starting Monday.
A spokesperson at Mount Sinai told CNN the hospital system is actively bargaining with the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses under different union contracts. The spokesperson said the hospitals will resume negotiations for nurses at the main Mount Sinai hospital facility.
Hagans said staffing has dropped to dangerous levels for the patients and the nursing, and significantly addressing those needs are paramount in the contracts.
“The bosses have repeatedly broken their promises on staffing,” Hagans said. “Our safe staffing standards are routinely violated and management gaslight the nurses when we try to enforce our current contract.”
These are some of the first nurse contract negotiations since the coronavirus pandemic, where many nurses said the virus exposes critical weaknesses in staffing that can no longer on unaddressed.
“Staffing was an issue prior to the pandemic, but it has reached a crisis point as we enter our third COVID winter, and with other illnesses like flu and RSV also surging,” said a union-supported nursing blog Saturday.
“Greedy hospital CEOs claim they don’t have money to spend hiring nurses and paying them enough to stay, but we know that’s not true. NYC hospitals paid executives millions in salaries, bonuses and perks even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.”
