New York Nurses’ Union Threatens Strike over Safety, Wages

Labor Landscape

New York, NY (WorkersCompensation.com) – Thousands of nurses in New York City and Long Island could go on strike within 10 days, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) said Friday.

According to the NYSNA, one of the key sticking points in negotiations is hospitals refusing to agree to protections from workplace violence. Nurses are also negotiating for a guarantee of healthcare benefits for frontline nurses, the union said.

“Management is refusing to guarantee our healthcare benefits and trying to roll back the safe staffing standards we fought for and won,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, said in a statement. “We have been bargaining for months, but hospitals have not done nearly enough to settle fair contracts that protect patient care. Striking is always a last resort; however, nurses will not stop until we win contracts that deliver patient and nurse safety. The future of care in this city is far too important to compromise on our values as nurses.”

Nurses have also said they are concerned about severe staff shortages that leave nurses with up to 12 patients to care for per shift.

“Our top priority is patients’ safety and staffing in the hospital,” Shiro Nachisaki, a nurse at Huntington Hospital. He said contract negotiations with Huntington Hospital’s parent company Northwell Health have not been able to broker deals on staffing.

Northwell Health, said through a spokesperson, “Northwell Health values and invests deeply in our nurses and the essential role they play in caring for our communities. Our hospitals are engaged in ongoing, constructive negotiations with the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) and have consistently bargained in good faith. Our focus remains on reaching a fair and responsible agreement that supports our nurses and ensures the continuity of high-quality, compassionate care our patients rely on.”

Nurses at 12 hospitals across New York City authorized the strike, including Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West, and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University Medical Center.

According to a study by the American Hospital Association, violence against healthcare workers has been on the rise for the past 10 years. Their student found that the rates of assault, homicide, and firearm violence have increased and that the

Violence is a major public health problem impacting our health system and communities. Over the past ten years, rates of violence have increased in the U.S., including rates of assault, homicide, suicide, and firearm violence.

The cost of violence to hospitals in 2023, the study said, was more than $18 billion.

“Overall, we estimate the total annual financial cost of violence to hospitals in 2023 to be $18.27 billion,” the AHA said in its report. “This estimate includes pre- and post-event cost components. Pre-event costs were estimated to be $3.62 billion and included costs for trainings, security and staffing, policy and procedure development, outreach to build public trust, facility modifications to prevent and mitigate harm, and investments in technology to monitor events. Post-event costs were estimated to be $14.65 billion and included costs for health care, staffing, replacement and repair of infrastructure and equipment, legal costs, and community and public relations costs. The largest contributor to total annual costs came from post-event health care expenses to treat violent injuries.”

According to the World Health Organization, “between 8 and 38 percent of nurses suffer from health-care violence at some point of their career”

Healthcare workers have a higher risk of being physically, sexually or psychologically injured.

“According to Cheung et al., in 2017, among 25,630 incidences of WPV occurred in the United States, of which 74 percent occurred in healthcare settings,” a study by Smita Kafle at the Fayetteville State University School of Nursing, in Fayetteville, N.C. said. “Similarly, the same study shows that the medical occupation group represents 10.2 percent of all WPV. Health-care professionals, and in particular, nurses, are most exposed to WPV. Similarly, Liu et al. in their study reported that 62 percent of participants reported exposure to any form of WPV, 43 percent reported exposure to non-physical violence, and 24 percent reported experiencing physical violence in the past year. Nurses are the frontline workers, and patients spend more time with nurses in care facilities than other health-care providers, automatically increasing the risk of violence.”

In the past five years, nurses across the country have called for more protections from assaults including everything from increased police presence in hospitals to personal protective devices that nurses can use to signal for help.

NYSNA said up to 20,000 nurses could walk off the job on Jan. 12, if changes to the contract aren’t made. The contract expired on Dec. 31.

A spokesperson with Mount Sinai said negotiations would continue.

"After only a day of working with a mediator at one of our hospitals, NYSNA is yet again threatening to force nurses to walk away from patients' bedsides - this time while continuing to insist on increasing average nurse pay by $100,000. NYSNA has acknowledged that federal funding cuts will cost New York hospitals $8 billion and 35,000 jobs, but just three years after its last strike the union is showing once again it is willing to use patients as bargaining chips, this time while pushing billions of dollars in economic demands that would compromise the financial health of our entire system and threaten the financial stability of hospitals across New York City. We will continue to work in good faith to reach an agreement before the strike, however, after months of preparation, our system is ready for every outcome so we can maintain high-quality patient care and continue to serve our patients and communities across New York."

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