Nurse Strike over Safety, Working Conditions, Pay Enters Second Week

Safety at Work

New York, NY (WorkersCompensation.com) - After the collapse of negotiations, the largest nurses strike in New York City’s history is primed to enter its second week.

On Thursday and Friday, the New York State Nurses Association, the union representing nearly 15,000 striking nurses across New York City, met with Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Morningside and West, two of the hospitals involved in the strike, to negotiate. However, the talks stalled sending nurses back out onto the picket line during the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend.

Nurses are demanding better workplace safety, following concerns about increases in workplace violence, better working conditions, and better pay. The union said they made “significant revisions” to their demands during the negotiations, but that the hospitals had offered “nothing” in return.

“What we are demanding, we believe, is essential to providing care to New Yorkers,” NYSNA said in a statement. “It seems hospitals are furious about the safe staffing standards that nurses won three years ago and are willing to do anything to claw them back. What will it take for the city’s wealthiest hospitals to start listening to nurses, patients, and the public?”

Management at both hospitals called the nurses’ proposal “unreasonable.”

“The union’s proposals remain unreasonable,” New York-Presbyterian said in a statement. “While we continue to be far apart, we are committed to bargaining in good faith. Future meetings will be scheduled through the mediator.”

The nurses strike began on Jan. 12 after collective bargaining talks broke down. Nurses said the gains they got after a smaller strike in 2023, are disappearing. After that strike, more nurses were hired, new nurse-patient ratios were put in place and penalties were imposed on hospitals if they violated staffing rules. Since then, the nurses’ union said, hospitals have challenged those agreements, in court and at the bargaining table.

Now, nurses are demanding more security at hospital entrances to help protect them from workplace violence and the risk of mass shootings.

In 2017, a doctor, Henry Bello, 45, sent workers at the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center scrambling after he entered the hospital where he had worked, and opened fire. Bello killed a doctor, wounded six others, and then set himself on fire before shooting himself in the head.

In October of this year, a patient in Wynn Hospital in Utica, N.Y., attacked a nurse who was helping another nurse with the patient. Officials said Anthony Garcia, 23, had been admitted to Wynn when he abruptly left his hospital room. When he returned, he punched the nurse in the eye leaving her with a large cut and swelling.

"I was assaulted. I sustained some injuries. I'm doing OK. I sought out some counseling afterwards. It's traumatic not only for myself, but also for all of my coworkers. They were shocked. They were scared," the victim, Paula Culver, said.

Hospitals have seen an increase in the number of assaults on healthcare workers in recent years. Those assaults have primarily been in the emergency department and the behavioral health unit. Culver was working as a nurse on the behavioral health unit at the time of the attack.

"I love my job. I don't just like my job,” she said. “I love my job. I have great coworkers; they're some of my favorite people."

At Wynn, hospital officials offered training for de-escalation techniques, and at the beginning of this year, required all staff who interact with patients to wear an alert or “panic” button.

"They're wearable devices, that when something happens, it goes right to security. Then, security can respond very quickly rather than calling something overhead, having a delay, making it known that you're calling for help because sometimes that makes a situation worse," Chief Nursing Officer Julie Hall said.

Hospitals, however, seem like they are digging in their heels. In anticipation of some lean years ahead as the policies of President Donald Trump leaves more people uninsured and the federal government spends less on public health, hospitals seem to be primed to fight, saying they can’t afford the nurses’ demands.

Montefiore says it already offers generous health benefits and programs to keep nurses safe and New York-Presbyterian says its nurses are among the highest paid in the city. Nurses are also striking at the main campus of Mount Sinai Hospital, and two other major hospitals within the Mount Sinai system.

Nurses have reached agreements with three hospitals in Long Island owned by Northwell Health - Huntington Hospital, Plainview Hospital, and Syosset Hospital - reached tentative contract agreements with the union.

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