Almost 9,000 NYC Nurses Prepare to Strike on Staffing Levels

Another three New York City hospitals reached tentative contract agreements with unions overnight Friday, leaving about 8,700 nurses still prepared to strike on Monday to protest what they say are unsafe staffing levels.

(Bloomberg) — Another three New York City hospitals reached tentative contract agreements with unions overnight Friday, leaving about 8,700 nurses still prepared to strike on Monday to protest what they say are unsafe staffing levels.

Montefiore Bronx, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West continue negotiations, while representatives from Mount Sinai’s main campus suspended talks, New York State Nurses Association president Nancy Hagans said at a press briefing Saturday. Talks have also begun at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn to avert a strike that would begin Jan. 17.

The pandemic heightened an already-existing shortage of nurses as thousands left the field or joined agencies as travel nurses. The New York nurses’ group says unsafe staffing levels are the result, endangering patients and pushing yet more workers out of nursing.

Mount Sinai is in the process of transferring 13 infants from two neonatal intensive care units to other hospitals in preparation for a potential strike, spokeswoman Lucia Lee said. It’s also suspended elective procedures.

Lee said Mount Sinai paused talks early Friday after the union wanted to revisit parts of a developing agreement, but is willing to continue negotiations, which began in September.

The union on Saturday announced new tentative contracts at BronxCare Health System, Flushing Hospital Medical Center and Brooklyn Hospital Center, adding to earlier ones concluded with NewYork-Presbyterian, Maimonides Medical Center and Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island. Besides wage increases, the new contracts improve staffing ratios and enforcement mechanisms, Hagans said.

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