Despite below-freezing temperatures which followed winter storm Fern, nurses on the picket line continued to march during the third week of the historic New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) strike.
The cold snap briefly halted picketing on Sunday, Jan. 25, and for most of Monday, Jan. 26, but nurses quickly returned to outdoor marches by Monday evening and were back in full force once contract negotiations resumed on Tuesday.
Negotiations between NYSNA and management teams from Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai, and NewYork-Presbyterian started again on Tuesday, Jan. 27. While bargaining continued inside, NYSNA members maintained a boisterous presence outside the medical facilities.
Over the weekend, nurses were able to come to tentative agreements on their health care in contract talks with Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian. According to NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, “Nurses overcame a major hurdle in protecting their healthcare benefits after hospitals threatened to cut care for frontline nurses and our families.” Both hospital management teams agreed to preserve NYSNA’s Plan A health benefits without reductions, which had been a major issue for union members. Under the tentative terms, nurses will keep their comprehensive health coverage, with most services covered at 70% after a deductible.
Hagans stressed that while the agreement on health benefits is a big victory, major concerns remain. “This victory is a vital step toward settling fair contracts, but our fight is not over yet. Safe staffing and protections from workplace violence remain our outstanding priorities. We will be out in the cold every day for as long as it takes, along with our allies and community, until we make sure that every nurse is safe in their workplace and every patient is able to receive the quality care they deserve, no matter what zip code they live in.”
The negotiations between all parties resumed with the help of mediators from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and daily bargaining sessions were scheduled for late January to finalize contracts. But sources representing hospital management teams tell the AmNews that although they “have been at the table since yesterday, [they’re] not making any progress on any fronts.”
The union continues to push for enforceable staffing ratios, enhanced workplace safety, the safeguarding of pension plans, and the development of a model AI language system that will guarantee that patients are always cared for by qualified nurses at their bedside.
The NYSNA strike has drawn notable support from the broader community. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rallied with them on Jan. 20 and City Council Labor Chair Shirley Aldebol was scheduled to come out to support the nurses as the AmNews went to press on Wednesday, Jan. 28. Off-duty physicians from the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU) joined the picket line in front of Montefiore on Monday and at Mount Sinai West on Tuesday. This is the first time CIR/SEIU has formally endorsed its members’ participation in a NYSNA strike.
Dr. Miledys Guzman, a Montefiore resident physician and CIR/SEIU member, said the nurses’ demands are important: “As a Bronx native and a physician at Montefiore, I understand the importance of ensuring our city’s nurses have what they need to keep providing quality care to this community. Providing good care to our patients does not happen by magic. “Not only does it require hard work and clinical skills,” she continued, “it requires dedication to the Bronx, to our people. It requires healthcare workers who know this community and the injustices we’ve faced, and it requires nurses with institutional and local knowledge. We’re standing with NYSNA because these folks are New York’s nurses, they matter, and our city’s health depends on them having what they need.”
NYSNA’s roughly 15,000 nurses began their strike on Jan. 12. The union notes that, “Across the city, 35.4% of nurses are Black or African American, 10.7% Hispanic or Latinx, and 20.9% are AAPI. Over two-thirds of NYC nurses are women of color, and, according to the American Immigration Council, 28.2% of all registered nurses in New York state are immigrants.”