Big win on ratios and pay for New York nurses

Strikes lead to 19 per cent pay rises and ratios with strong enforcement, including financial penalties.

More than 7000 nurses from two New York City hospitals, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, went on strike in January for three days.

The strike ended with groundbreaking agreements that increase staffing levels and enforcement. The contracts also contain 19 per cent pay increases and protected healthcare benefits, according to the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA).

At Mount Sinai, the hospital agreed to staffing ratios for all inpatient units with “firm enforcement”.

The contract reached with Montefiore entails “new, safe staffing ratios in the Emergency Department, with new staffing language and financial penalties for failing to comply with safe staffing levels in all units,” said the union.

Matt Allen, one of the nurse leaders at Mt Sinai Hospital, said that the central problem in New York state isn’t a lack of trained nurses, but rather that they aren’t being incentivised to remain in the profession.

In New York, there are about 170,000 registered nurses who are not practising bedside nursing, according to the NYSNA.

“If you improve the staffing, if you improve the working conditions, people are going to come back to the bedside. That’s the way we are looking at it,” he told the New York Times.

Covid Decimated Nurse Numbers

Allen said the impact of understaffing during the pandemic for both patients and nurses has made him and his colleagues “angry” and “empowered to be taking a stand”.

“It was just a traumatic experience for lots of us nurses to go through,” he said.

“It’s further depleted our staffing by people retiring early, people burning out and leaving the profession or leaving bedside nursing.”

During the strike hospital management accused nurses of abandoning their responsibilities saying they had walked “away from the bedsides of patients”.

“Their behaviour at the negotiating table mimics the behaviour they show us on the units every day,” said Matt Allen.

“They’ve been dismissive. They’ve been disrespectful. They ignore us. “They’re blaming us for abandoning patients and being irresponsible. But the hospital’s been abandoning patients for the past several years when they refuse to give us adequate staffing.”

When the dispute was settled, Mount Sinai and Montefiore said in separate statements that they welcomed the agreements with the union. “It is fair and responsible, and it puts patients first,” said Mount Sinai.

Philip Ozuah, the chief executive of Montefiore Medicine, said the hospital was “grateful for the dedication and commitment of our nurses, who have served through very challenging circumstances over the past several years.” n