NYC nurses demand pay parity from city’s Health + Hospitals network after strike at private hospitals

Weeks after a strike at two New York City private hospitals, the nurses’ union is calling on the city’s public hospitals to commit to paying their members a salary comparable to what they currently receive in the private sector.

The New York State Nursing Association recently outlined its demand in a letter to the city’s Health + Hospitals network. This is based on contracts awarded last month to several private hospitals that resulted in pay increases and better staffing guarantees.

“If you don’t have pay parity in the private and public sectors, we will never be able to get nurses to work at H+H,” union president Nancy Hagans told the Daily News on Wednesday.

“After our recent contract wins, the gap is about $19,000 a year,” Hagans said. “And the nurses are trained the same, the nurses care for the patients, the care is the same, the nurses work very hard, the same education – so these nurses, we are afraid, will leave and go to the private sector. ”

Nurses outside the NYC Health + Hospitals headquarters on Water Street in Lower Manhattan January 18.

Concerns about fair pay and an exodus of nurses from the city’s public hospitals are also fueling fears that these hospitals will not be able to maintain the nurse-to-patient ratio set out in the union’s current agreement with the city, Hagans said.

But the city is also grappling with a potentially huge budget deficit in the coming years. While Mayor Adams has expressed support for the nurses who went on strike at private hospitals last month, it’s unclear how much he and his Labor Relations Administration will sympathize with their counterparts at public hospitals given the potential financial crisis.

The city’s public hospital network, consisting of 11 hospitals and dozens of other small health care facilities, primarily serves the poor. Some, such as Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, are the only local facilities equipped to treat acute mental illness or severe injuries such as gunshot or stab wounds.

Sonia Lawrence, a Lincoln nurse of 28 years, said that with nurses overworked during the COVID pandemic and new contracts with private hospitals, nurses are now making the decision to leave the ship.

“We bleed nurses. In some departments, four nurses left us in a week,” she said.

“We always do more with less. We care for all New Yorkers, regardless of socioeconomic status, insurance, race, color, ability to pay, or immigration status. But we are tired,” Lawrence continued.

“Personnel has always been a problem for us,” she said. “But with the pandemic and the new contracts that have just arrived for our personal brothers and sisters, things have gotten out of hand.”

Sonia Lawrence, who has been a Lincoln nurse for almost three decades, said that due to nurses being overworked during the COVID pandemic and new contracts with private hospitals, the nurses she works with are now making the decision to leave the ship.

Talks between the city’s Health + Hospitals network and the union are expected to begin next month. The union’s contract with H+H expires March 6th.

In what direction these negotiations will go is not yet clear. But in a letter from the H+H union and the city’s Office of Labor Relations, NYSNA Executive Director Pat Cain signaled that the union would rely on a currently defunct wage parity clause in its current contract, saying the parity issue represented an “existential crisis.” “. » for nurses.

“This provision has been suspended for the duration of the agreement, which ends March 2, 2023,” she wrote. “NYSNA intends to reactivate this.”

According to Kane’s Feb. 1 letter, many private hospitals that have agreed to raises in the coming years are on the current contract’s “parity settlement list”.

“With these new [contract] settlements, the wage ratio gap will exceed $19,000,” Kane wrote. “These increases are being introduced now and every nurse in NYC H+H NYSNA knows about them.”

A nurses' strike rally near the Montefiore Moses campus in Norwood, Bronx, January.

Kane noted that prior to the new contracts, the average pay gap for nurses in private and public hospitals was over $14,000.

Unlike the union’s negotiations with private hospitals last month, the upcoming contract negotiations with the city’s public hospital network do not carry the threat of a strike, given legal prohibitions on laying off public workers from their jobs.

However, this was not the case in private hospitals in January.

Last month, nurses at two private hospitals – Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan – quit their jobs for days after negotiations stalled. Negotiations at both hospitals eventually resumed and led to new contracts, but relatively short strikes caused chaos, leaving patients and families worried about the quality of care.

Nurses march during a strike near the campus of Montefiore Moses Hospital in Norwood, Bronx, New York.

Throughout the strike, NYSNA received widespread support, primarily from elected officials, including Mayor Adams, who at the time said he was “a strong supporter of nursing.”

Political leaders seem ready to stand up for the city’s hospital nurses. The union is hosting a forum Thursday night with public attorney Juman Williams, and Manhattan County President Mark Levine and Brooklyn County President Antonio Reynoso say they support his parity efforts.

Levin noted that Health + Hospitals is having a hard time recruiting nurses. “We have budget stress, but I just don’t think it can be avoided,” he said.

A spokesperson for Adams’ office did not immediately respond to questions about the upcoming contract negotiations, and neither did H+H.

While Adams can account for his past support for the striking nurses, he has to contend with the city’s financial problems. According to recent budget calculations, the city expects a budget deficit of up to $6.5 billion in 2026.

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