'Historic Victory': After 3 Days on Strike, New York Nurses Win Deal With Hospitals
Common DreamsJan 12, 2023
On Thursday, more than 7k New York City nurses from Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan returned to work after reaching an agreement for "enforceable safe staffing ratios," according to their union, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA).
After almost four days on strike, the NYSNA and Montefiore — with Mount Sinai announcing a similar deal — agreed to a 19.1% pay increase, a bolstering of over 170 nursing positions, fully-funded healthcare for eligible nurses, and lifetime health coverage for eligible retirees.
Though on paper hospitals like Montefiore and Mount Sinai are non-profits, in reality, they run themselves like corporations and give their CEOs multi-million-dollar salaries. In the face of money like that, all these nurses were asking for was a slight bump in their salaries and the number of staff members to ensure their patients were being served by the highest quality caregivers. Thankfully, they won and can now go back to helping those in need.
Unions continue to lead industries down paths of destruction, and now people’s health is being put in danger due to union demands causing thousands of nurses to go on strike. New York has some of the highest union membership rates in the country which made the dispute unsurprising, yet still life-threateningly disruptive for New Yorkers.
There's a 50% chance that less than 12% of Americans will be represented by a labor union in 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.