Media Advisory For: Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Media Contact: CWANY@berlinrosen.com
Steph Derstine steph.derstine@berlinrosen.com 512-820-7903
Kristi Barnes press@nysna.org 646-853-4489
TUES, 12/19: NYS Healthcare Workers to Rally Outside Legislative Hearing to Demand Lawmakers Address Statewide Staffing Crisis in FY25 State Budget
Ahead of Legislative Hearing on 2024 Healthcare Priorities, Healthcare Workers with CWA D1 and NYSNA to Hold Press Conference Pushing State Legislators to Fully Fund NY Healthcare Facilities
Nurses and Healthcare Workers Point to Thousands of Violations of Hospital Clinical Staffing Committee Law and Urge NYS DOH and Policymakers to Enforce Safe Staffing
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Healthcare workers with New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) and Communications Workers of America District 1 (CWA D1) will hold a press conference on Tuesday, December 19 at 9am ET outside of a state legislative hearing on 2024 healthcare priorities, where they’ll call on state legislators to prioritize safe staffing in their critical discussions around the next budget.
Before workers share their testimonies to lawmakers at the hearing, they will rally together to ensure legislators understand the severity of the staffing crisis that’s threatening worker safety and quality of patient care across New York state. Workers will also call for robust implementation and enforcement of the 2021 Hospital Clinical Staffing Committee law and urge lawmakers to ensure full Medicaid reimbursement is included in the FY25 State Budget in addition to proposals aimed at stabilizing the existing healthcare workforce.
***More Details on Next Tuesday’s Presser Included Below***
Healthcare workers across New York are being forced to take on too many patients at once due to decades of underfunding and short staffing at hospitals throughout the state, often working mandatory overtime and past the point of exhaustion at the expense of patient safety. This burden has only exacerbated widespread recruitment and retention challenges at New York hospitals as healthcare workers continue to leave the industry in droves for better opportunities. In New York state, only 53% of actively licensed nurses are actively working as nurses, demonstrating that the state is facing more of a shortage of good healthcare jobs, than healthcare workers themselves.
The press conference will come just weeks after CWA District 1’s submission of thousands of violations of hospitals’ clinical staffing plans to the New York Department of Health (DOH). The plans were required by the 2021 Clinical Staffing Committee law, which both CWA District 1 and NYSNA helped write and pass to ensure safe staffing levels and quality patient care across all New York hospitals. Since it went into effect in January 2023, thousands of unresolved staffing complaints have been filed including 8,000 violations filed by CWA D1 workers. NYSNA nurses are using the contract enforcement process, as well as filing DOH complaints, to enforce safe staffing standards. NYSNA nurses have won several arbitration awards because of staffing violations, including a
$220K award from Mount Sinai and most recently an award from Montefiore Health System, proving that staffing is still a crisis all over the state, for every healthcare union.
DETAILS:
WHAT: Press conference and rally ahead of NYS Assembly hearing on healthcare workforce, to demand state legislators ensure safe staffing and fully fund Medicaid in FY25 state budget
WHO: Healthcare workers with CWA D1 and NYSNA
WHEN: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 at 9:00am E.T.
WHERE: Hunter College, West Building, 904 Lexington Ave. New York, NY 10065
###
CWA District 1 represents 145,000 workers in 200 CWA local unions in New York, New Jersey, New England, and eastern Canada. CWA members work in telecommunications, health care, higher education, manufacturing, broadcast and cable television, commercial printing and newspapers, state, local, and country government.
The New York State Nurses Association represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. NYSNA is an affiliate of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, the country's largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses, with more than 225,000 members nationwide.
