Nurses at 2 NY hospitals ratify contracts

Nurses who are members of the New York State Nurses Association at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital have ratified their contracts, NYSNA announced this morning.

The nurses and the hospitals reached tentative agreements earlier this month after the nurses went on strike for three days, demanding better wages and safe staff-to-patient ratios.

The agreement at Montefiore includes a 19% wage increase over three years, new ratios in the emergency, acute care and sub-acute care departments, new staffing enforcement language–which says the hospital can be fined if it does not meet ratio requirements– preserved health care benefits, an increase in float pool nurses and steps to recruit and retain nurses.

More on the strike:

• Nurses at 2 NY hospitals return to work after 3-day strike
• Mount Sinai stops elective surgeries, transfers patients amid potential nurse strike

Mount Sinai’s agreement also includes a 19% increase over three years; wall-to-wall safe staffing ratios for all units, new staffing enforcement language; potential financial penalties if the hospital doesn’t uphold staffing ratios; and preserved health care benefits.

According to NYSNA, which represents about 17,000 nurses in the city and 42,000 statewide, the nurses finished voting on their contracts on Wednesday at Mount Sinai and Friday at Montefiore. In both groups of nurses, 98% voted to ratify their contracts.

NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said it will take time for the standards in the contracts to go into effect, and that the provisions will become the new standards enforceable by the state Department of Health.

Of the 12 private hospitals where NYSNA nurses began negotiating new contracts in September, only Interfaith Medical Center and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center remain in the bargaining stage.

This story first appeared in Crain's New York Business.