Nurses Authorize City-wide Hospital Strike By Overwhelming Margin Citing Not Enough Nurses And Caregivers For Safe Patient Care At NYC Private Hospitals; Talks Continue Through June 6

NEW YORK, June 3, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Nurses from across the city spoke with purpose and passion this morning as they announced a strike authorization by an overwhelming majority. The announcement by members of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) came just an hour before negotiations with representatives from four major hospitals reconvened. Nurses say there is a staffing crisis in many of the city's private hospitals and that more nurses are needed to address the crisis.

"Our patients' well-being--their very lives--depend on REAL staffing standards that enable us to simply do our jobs: to deliver safe quality care," said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, RN and NYSNA president, who works in the emergency room at Montefiore Moses Hospital in the Bronx.

With support from the public, elected officials, public health experts and other caregivers – all echoing the need for more nurses and caregivers in the hospitals – NYSNA nurses, representing 18,000 RNs in private hospitals across the city, spoke before their own membership, reporters and other supporters this morning.

"This past week, nurses have voted with a 95% margin to authorize a strike. We now have the ability to issue a 10-day notice to strike if we cannot make progress around these issues," said NYSNA President Sheridan-Gonzalez.

Negotiations are set to run through Saturday, June 6, with Montefiore, Mount Sinai, St. Luke's-Roosevelt and New York Presbyterian management together at the bargaining table with NYSNA nurses. Enforceable staffing standards for the nurses remain a key issue. Numerous studies show that nurse staffing is directly tied to patient outcomes.

Nancy Hagans, RN, works at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn – one of the 14 hospitals in bargaining and one that voted to authorize a strike. "Like so many of my colleagues here today, my hospital serves thousands of patients throughout Brooklyn," she said. "I spend my days working my shift, being told to see more patients with less support…basically, I'm asked to make miracles happen each and every day. But it's been difficult over the last few years as we've been asked to do more with less."

Karine Raymond, an RN at Montefiore Weiler Hospital, emotionally recounted her recent experience in which she and six other nurses were threatened with arrest and escorted out of the hospital and onto the street for "comparing notes on staffing issues" during a National Nurse's Week Appreciation Breakfast.

"We are confronting an unconscionable effort by management to stifle us, to silence us and to prevent us from fulfilling our role as patient advocates," said NYSNA President Sheridan-Gonzalez.

Lawyers for NYSNA said that Raymond's experience, and other acts of intimidation at other facilities, including during the strike authorization voting, led to the filing of federal Unfair Labor Practice charges this week. They also confirmed that the withholding of information on staffing at the hospitals was the basis for other charges submitted to the Labor Board.

The date of the strike has yet to be determined.

Hospitals in contract negotiations with NYSNA in New York City are: New York Presbyterian, Montefiore Medical Center, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Mt. Sinai St. Luke's, Mt. Sinai Roosevelt, Brooklyn Hospital Center, Maimonides Medical Center, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, New York Methodist Hospital, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island University Hospital, Interfaith Medical Center, Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Flushing Hospital.

SOURCE New York State Nurses Association