Private sector nurses from more than a dozen hospitals across New York City are continuing to build a coordinated contract campaign to defend nursing practice and protect quality patient care. Contracts are expiring soon, and while nurses in each hospital have their own concerns, we face the same key issues in every facility. Hospital management strategizes together. Now we do too.
Private sector nurses are meeting regularly to discuss the issues and plan our way forward. We held our first-ever bargaining conference in early December, and met again on April 29. The next conference is on June 18.
Every RN has a job to do in this contract fight, beginning with completing the bargaining survey and continuing with being an active part of the campaign. It’s a simple fact: Our strength is in our collective action. To date, nurses’ contract goals fall into three main areas:
- Patient protection and safe patient care
- Nurse, patient, and community safety
- Workforce stability
The one way to protect nursing practice and patients is together. Coordinated bargaining across hospitals is about power for RNs and patients. Hospitals have money, but we have the numbers and the moral high ground. Get involved!
“Supplies have been outsourced, and now there aren’t enough. It’s like a scavenger hunt for supplies.” – Michelle Pittman, RN, Staten Island University Hospital
“The industrial process in healthcare is turning hospitals into factories. There’s a gradual, insidious move to weaken NYSNA every day.” – Thomas Roman Clarke, RN, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
“Management gets top money, while quality care suffers and patients are put at risk. We’re supposed to have a patient family care center, but there’s no time for that, and no time for breaks. Staffing ratios are even worse at night.” – Gretel Villavelez, RN, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center
“What unites us? Defending patient care and our nurisng practice. We have to fight for safe staffing, and win it.” – Anthony Ciampa, RN, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, NYSNA Director at Large
NYC PRIVATE SECTOR BARGAINING CONFERENCE
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Details coming soon... talk to your union rep to sign up.
