Nurses Deliver Strike Notice at Catholic Health/St. Charles Hospital
For immediate release: July 3, 2026
Kristi Barnes | press@nysna.org | 646-853-4489
CATHOLIC HEALTH/ ST. CHARLES HOSPITAL FAILS TO REACH TENTATIVE CONTRACT AGREEMENT WITH NYSNA NURSES AFTER LATE NIGHT BARGAINING SESSION
St. Charles President Prevents Members from Continuing Negotiations Today
Negotiations to Resume Monday, July 6 with July 13 Strike Deadline Looming
Port Jefferson, N.Y. - After making progress at the bargaining table in a long session on Thursday, July 2, NYSNA nurses were eager to get back to the table today to continue negotiations for a fair contract that holds the hospital accountable for safe staffing.
Catholic Health/ St. Charles President James O’Connor stepped in to prevent bargaining committee members from attending the planned session today. O’Connor broke standard practice and refused to release the NYSNA members from their scheduled shifts at the hospital. As a result, negotiations had to be rescheduled for Monday, July 6.
NYSNA bargaining committee members will be released from work on Monday and ready to negotiate for a fair contract, with one week to go before a potential strike. NYSNA nurses at St. Charles are fighting for a fair contract that improves staffing at their community hospital.
NYSNA negotiating committee member at St. Charles, Kim Bowman, RN, said: "Safe staffing is an urgent issue, and negotiating a fair contract that ensures safe staffing must be a priority for St. Charles management. We are ready and willing to bargain as often and as long as it takes to reach a fair agreement that guarantees safe staffing for our friends, families, and neighbors who depend on our hospital for quality care.”
Safe staffing continues to be the sticking point in negotiations. St. Charles is chronically understaffed. In 2024, NYSNA reviewed extensive data showing that the emergency department was almost never staffed as required by the contract. St. Charles failed to recruit the nurses it agreed to hire at that time. NYSNA has filed for three separate arbitrations on staffing. The hospital recently assigned 1 nurse to care for 5 NICU babies—that’s more than double the safe, legal standard of care in New York state. St. Charles nurses submit between 100 to 200 complaints to hospital management about staffing every month. In May, they submitted 244 complaints.
A New York State Department of Health (DOH) investigation found nearly 200 violations of the safe staffing law. Although the hospital claims to have addressed the understaffing problem and has an accepted plan of correction with the DOH, hospital administrators refuse to share the plan with NYSNA nurses. Nurses say the increasing number of staffing complaints demonstrates that the hospital is falling far short of fixing the staffing problem. Nurses are demanding strong contract language to hold the hospital accountable.
On June 12, 2026, St. Charles nurses announced that a near-unanimous 99.7% of nurses voted to authorize a strike. NYSNA has filed an unfair labor practice charge against the hospital for refusing to release the corrective actions they will take to resolve the staffing violations that DOH found, and trying to silence nurses’ voice at work.
St. Charles nurses are among approximately 1,000 Catholic Health nurses at three hospitals currently negotiating contracts. The contract for NYSNA nurses at St. Joseph Hospital in Bethpage expired on March 31, and the contract for NYSNA nurses at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown is set to expire July 31. NYSNA nurses at all three hospitals are united in demanding contracts that deliver safe staffing, protections from workplace violence, and fair wages.
NYSNA nurses have won strong contracts on Long Island and in New York City in the last year. In January 2026, more than 1,000 NYSNA nurses at Northwell/Huntington Hospitals, Northwell/Plainview, and Northwell/Syosset won fair contracts that delivered safe staffing and fair wages just days before they were scheduled to strike. In January and February 2026, approximately 20,000 nurses at 12 New York City hospitals won contracts that improved enforceable safe staffing standards, protected health benefits, protected nurses from workplace violence, protected immigrant patients and nurses, safeguarded against artificial intelligence, and increase wages by more than 12% over the life of the three-year contracts. Nurses at three of those hospital systems went on the largest and longest nurse strike in New York City history.
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The New York State Nurses Association represents approximately 45,000 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.