2024
NYSNA members had another incredible year. We built on our groundbreaking contract and policy victories from the previous year and kept up our winning streak in every part of the state.
CONTRACT VICTORIES
Members at 20 facilities across the state fought and won great new contracts, helping to set new high standards. They organized informational pickets and community forums, spoke out, worked together and delivered strike notices to put hospital administrators on notice that they were serious about safe staffing and respect.
Congratulations to:
l A.O. Fox
l Alice Hyde Medical Center
l BronxCare Midwives
l CUNY
l Ellis Hospital and Bellevue Woman’s Center
l Erie County Health Department
l Lindenhurst UFSD
l Montefiore Mount Vernon
l Montefiore New Rochelle
l Montefiore Nyack
l Mount Sinai NY Eye and Ear
l Northwell/Long Island Jewish Valley Stream
l Northwell/ Peconic Bay Medical Center
l NewYork-Presbyterian-Hudson Valley Hospital
l St. Cabrini Nursing Home
l St. Vincent’s Westchester
l Staten Island University Hospital
l Staten Island University Hospital CRNAs
l US Family Health
l UVM-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital
Monte Lower Hudson Valley Nurses Unite and Win
Montefiore nurses at Mount Vernon, New Rochelle and Nyack Hospitals worked together for the first time, uniting on a common bargaining platform and campaigning together. Through speaking out and taking action, including taking
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Year in Review
Ellis Hospital and Bellevue Woman’s Center nurses held an informational picket on April 16, 2024.
2024
a strike vote, these nurses brought home contract victories in the final days of 2023 and first days of 2024, starting the new year off right.
Solidarity Continues for Northwell Long Island Nurses
Northwell NYSNA members at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream and Peconic Bay Medical Center kept the unity and momentum going, campaigning together to take on the wealthiest hospital system in the state. In February, members at both facilities ratified new contracts with major wage and enforceable safe staffing gains.
Ellis and Bellevue Nurses Persevered
Ellis Hospital and Bellevue Woman’s Center nurses fought
long and hard for a fair contract in the capital region. In the middle of their contract fight, they won a staffing arbitration that delivered financial remedies to understaffed nurses — a first for upstate NYSNA members. They also took a stand to save women’s health services at the nearby Burdett Center and advocated for better community care throughout the capital region. They organized tirelessly and took a strike vote for the first time, reaching a contract agreement before their strike deadline. They showed us what solidarity and success look like!
Nurses at Small But Mighty Facilities Won
Nurses at A.O. Fox were struggling with a 50% nurse vacancy rate, and their employer had outrageous givebacks on the table. They
spoke out and won a great new contract with the respect they deserve. Nurses at Mount Sinai New York Eye and Ear were facing cuts, and they bravely spoke out and organized an informational picket for the first time, helping to deliver a fair contract this summer. Congratulations!
Buffalo Nurses Build on Contract Victories
NYSNA members at Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) and Terrace View Long Term Care had a major contract victory in 2023 that improved staffing recruitment and enforcement, wages, and workplace safety measures. In 2024, ECMC nurses built on this momentum. They won the long-sought-after option of a 13-hour shift, expanded their weapons screening program to improve workplace safety, improved
NYSNA members lobbied in Albany.
NYSNA members sent a message of solidarity to Northwell Huntington Hospital nurses at Convention.
nurse orientation and training, and strengthened nurses’ voice by winning inclusion on internal hospital committees that historically excluded frontline nurses.
ORGANIZING NURSES
NYSNA continued to organize more nurses into the largest and strongest union for registered nurses in New York — NYSNA! We know that when nurses try to organize a union, the deck is stacked against them, and our labor law system moves too slowly. Nurses at Northwell/ Huntington Hospital on Long Island had to wait for more than four months to vote for NYSNA. Although justice was delayed, it wasn’t denied. After clearing roadblock after roadblock, nurses voted for NYSNA to represent them. Nurses everywhere deserve to be part of a strong, member-led union — for the nurses, by the nurses!
Organizing the Huntington nurses into our NYSNA family builds on our key growth strategy — to organize the nonunion facilities in the systems where we already have contracts. This allows us to coordinate bargaining campaigns and wins with new members — all at the same employer. And a boss with divided attention is one that we can beat!
BUILDING WORKER AND POLITICAL POWER
Safe Staffing
This year, NYSNA kept safe staffing in our sights and made steady gains through winning high standards and strong enforcement in our contracts, putting our contract language to the test by winning groundbreaking arbitration victories, and pushing the Department of Health (DOH) to do its job and implement and enforce the staffing law.
We had great safe staffing mediation and arbitration victories at:
l Ellis Medicine
l Maimonides
l Montefiore
l Mount Sinai, Sinai
Morningside and Sinai West
l NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP)
l NYP Allen
l NYP-Brooklyn Methodist
NYP tried to push back against our staffing wins. It spent untold thousands or millions on meritless lawsuits that the courts threw out. NYP nurses kept pushing ahead and winning. In October, nurses in the Allen emergency department won three extra vacation days as a remedy for understaffing — the first ever award of its kind.
NYSNA members flexed their power with NYC Health+ Hospitals/Mayorals. Last year, New York City public sector nurses won pay parity for the first time in 30 years. When nurses saw that their second parity payment wasn’t in their paycheck, they refused to take the city’s excuses and delays. Instead, they mobilized, spoke out and built support with elected officials. They succeeded in getting their pay parity payment expedited and showed that protecting our wins and enforcing our contracts is the way we keep building our power. With our healthcare worker allies, we pushed the DOH to enforce the staffing law. Members at Vassar put the law to the test and delivered the first big win since the law was enacted. The DOH investigated and delivered a staffing deficiency report to the hospital. Frontline nurses and caregivers collaborated on a solution, and the hospital’s action plan involves hiring more nurses to fill vacancies, creating new float pool positions and adding a nurse residency program.
Saving Healthcare
Services
NYSNA members protected healthcare services everywhere. In
rural western New York, Brooks Memorial Hospital NYSNA nurses joined with 1199SEIU to campaign to “Build Brooks Now.” We pushed for the state to come through with long-promised funding to build a new modern Brooks Hospital in Chautauqua County, and we won.
When maternal healthcare was under attack, NYSNA members did not just sit back. At Catholic Health’s St. Catherine of Siena Hospital on Long Island, the Burdett Birth Center in Troy, and at NYP in Northern Manhattan, nurses and midwives fought back. As part of the Save Burdett Coalition, capital region nurses prevented the closure of the only birthing center in Rensselaer County. Although we were unable to save services at St. Catherine’s, our advocacy secured positions for our members and ensured expanded maternal-child health services at other Catholic Health hospitals. At NYP, we were unable to prevent the takeover of midwifery services but did preserve them at the NYP Allen Hospital.
New York State Budget Victories
Our advocacy paid off in the New York state budget. Thanks to our strong advocacy, we defended nursing scope of practice, secured funding for hospitals and nursing homes, preserved COVID-19 leave for all workers, maintained nurse practitioners’ independent practice
NYC Health+Hospitals/Mayorals nurses wore red for pay parity.
Brooks Memorial nurses and caregivers demanded and won funding for a new modern hospital.
Mount Sinai ED nurses win staffing arbitration.
marched in
rights and improved Tier 6 public pension benefits.
National Nurse Power
We continued to build nurse power nationally with National Nurses United (NNU). NYSNA leaders traveled the country, learning lessons to bring back to our shops and making our voices
WE MADE OUR VOICES HEARD
NYSNA nurses continued to be trusted voices on patient care and a broad range of healthcare issues. In 2024, members made television, radio and print news over 550 times, commenting on important issues, such as safe staffing, health equity, health and safety, union
LOOKING AHEAD
heard in solidarity with nurses everywhere to defend against hospital consolidation and artificial intelligence.
NYSNA and NNU health and safety representatives now have a seat at the table when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes rules about infection control and worker health and safety. This will be critical for whatever healthcare emergency we may face in the future.
and community solidarity, and contract negotiations. Our most popular content was a New York Times article about NYP’s meritless lawsuits, which reached 168 million people. See more of our popular content from this year.
We know that there is still more work to do to win universal safe staffing ratios, protect our health and safety, ensure quality healthcare for all and more. We must continue to build our power to turn these goals
into reality. As we look to 2025, NYSNA members are ready to build on our strong track record of success to defend our patients and our practice and continue our winning streak. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9
We
solidarity with nurses fighting for a fair contract at the NNU Convention on Sept. 24.
NYSNA leaders attended the meeting of New York State AFL-CIO's first Women's Committee, which Pres. Hagans co-chairs.