For Immediate Release
Contact: Randi Hoffman, 212.785.0157, ext. 118
NEW YORK, November 9, 2010 - The registered nurses of New York City’s public hospitals and mayoral agencies will rally and then march to City Hall, on Tuesday, November 9, to demand fair treatment equitable to other city workers.
They will meet and rally on the southwest corner of Vesey Street and Broadway at 3:30 p.m. and at 4 p.m. will march to City Hall to meet with Mayor Bloomberg. The nurses have been working without a contract for almost a year, and are protesting the city not providing them with a contract as received by the other city unions.
The more than 7,000 nurses who work for New City’s Health and Hospital Corporation and the Mayoral Agencies have been attempting to negotiate with the city since September of 2009, and have hit a wall. Their contract expired in January of 2010. Other city unions who have completed their negotiations have received a set financial package and the nurses, who are represented by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), are demanding the same consideration.
They will present the mayor with a “City Nurses Bill of Rights” signed by thousands of nurses. It states that all city workers are entitled to fair and equitable treatment, and city nurses are equal in all aspects to other city workers.
“The nurses of the New York City public hospitals are committed to their patients and their facilities,” said Anne Bové, president of NYSNA’s HHC bargaining unit and a nurse at Bellevue Hospital. “We give a great deal of ourselves to some of the neediest populations of the city, and deserve treatment equitable to other municipal employees.”
Additionally, at the rally, NYSNA wants to call attention to the city’s ongoing denial of “physically taxing” status to the nurses, which would guarantee them the retirement benefits provided to city workers with recognized physically demanding jobs. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) determined last July that NYC’s refusal to designate the jobs of nurses and midwives as “physically taxing” constitutes illegal gender discrimination.
City Council Members James Sanders and Julissa Ferreras will speak at the rally, along with Harry Nespoli, Chair of the Municipal Labor Committee and President of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, Anne Goldman of the UFT Federation of Nurses, and other labor leaders.
The New York State Nurses Association is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 37,000 members, it is the state's largest professional association and largest union for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.
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