The Business Journals - Week of December 7

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TR US TE D J O U R NALI S M AT YO U R FI N G E RTI P S

DECEMBER 07, 2020 VOL. 56, No. 49

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Nurses picket outside Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital during a two-day strike. Photo by Peter Katz.

NURSES STRIKE AS COVID CASES RISE BY PETER KATZ pkatz@westfairinc.com

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gainst the backA gainst the background of Covid-19 cases increasing dramatically and new concerns being expressed about continued impacts in Westchester and throughout New York state as TWB Loan Decision well as the rest of the U.S., Banner membersAd of the New York 6” w xNurses 1.5” h Association State 3-24-20 (NYSNA) allege that Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital is locking out some of its members. The lockout charge follows a twoday strike against the New Rochelle hospital and a sep-

arate one-day strike against the Albany Medical Center. The union has alleged that both institutions engaged in unfair labor practices. The New Rochelle strike took place Dec. 1 and 2 and the walkout in Albany was on Dec. 1. Union nurses have been working without a contract in Albany for two years and the union had been negotiating for a new contract with Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital before the strike was called. NYNSA said that the hospital told about 30 to 40 of its staff of 200 union nurses not to report for work Dec. 3, which the

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union viewed as a selective lockout. The union said that the same thing happened regarding work shifts on Dec. 4, although it did not immediately have the total number of its members who it said were told to stay away. Montefiore did not immediately respond to a request from the Business Journal on Dec. 4 for comment on the union’s lockout reports and a status report on the New Rochelle hospital. The union has alleged that neither hospital has adequate personal protective equipment » CODE BLUE

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Greenwich-startup Werkzy links small businesses and flex workers BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com

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s with most things, the eternal challenge/opportunity equation has been knocked for something of a loop in the Covid-19 era. But leveraging the coronavirus to positive effect is still possible, as evidenced by a pair of women behind new online job platform Werkzy. Werkzy’s aim is to provide employers — mostly small businesses — “with a talent pool of professionals

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who might need flexible hours for a period in their life,” co-founder Asya Geller told the Business Journal. “We wanted to be as inclusive as possible and when Covid came along, it just made even more sense.” Geller, who lives in Greenwich, and co-founder Talia Friedman, based in Los Angeles, first met while working in client and business development at Sotheby’s in Manhattan — Geller for about nine years and Friedman for over 16 (“She was my boss for a couple of years,” Geller said). Although they “loved our time there,” Geller said circumstances had changed enough by the end of 2019 that they started looking for other opportunities. “I’m a mom with two young kids doing the commute to New York City,” Geller said. “That had turned into a struggle and then when Sotheby’s came

under new ownership, we both thought it was the perfect moment to leave the company.” The 275-year-old auction house was acquired in June 2019 by media tycoon Patrick Drahi in a deal worth roughly $3.7 billion. Soon after, he decided to take the company private, jettisoning dozens of high-level executives in favor of managers from his own cable company, Altice. “Technically, I was laid off in December 2019,” Geller said. “But what happened was, I went to them and said, ‘You’re laying off all these people — and I want to be one of them.’ It had become such a grind.” Friedman followed her out the door in January of this year, leaving the pair “trying to figure out what our next steps were,” Geller said. “We decided to create something that was » MATCHMAKER

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