Posts tagged New York State Nurses Association
32 Knowledge Tracker How New York’s Democratic Socialists Brought Unions Around to Public Renewables
June 20, 2023 // ince they did not initially have access to state-level union leaders, the DSA organizers started by building relationships with local utilities unions across the state. Public Power New York recruited hundreds of volunteers to help steer the victories of numerous DSA-endorsed state legislators in 2020 and 2022. One successful candidate was climate organizer Sarahana Shrestha, now a state assemblymember from the Hudson Valley. She unseated her long-tenured Democratic primary opponent, in part, by highlighting his opposition to the BPRA. The bill began to move in Albany in a real way when unions outside of the utilities sector, like the New York State United Teachers, the New York State Nurses Association, and the Service Employees International Union, endorsed the bill. Once the bill passed the state Senate in the summer of 2022, the utilities unions took a more serious interest in the plan. The BPRA’s labor provisions include prevailing-wage assurances and require that all the NYPA’s renewable projects include collective-bargaining agreements for every employee, including contractors and subcontractors. These agreements must be in place before work can start on a project. The law creates a $25 million just-transition fund to retrain fossil fuel–sector workers who could lose their jobs, and specifies that union leaders must be consulted in this process. It also prioritizes hiring these retrained workers for the NYPA’s renewable projects.
Nurses union holding ‘Day of Action’ amid contract negotiations
March 3, 2023 // Public sector nurses are not legally allowed to strike because they are municipal workers. Any strike would be illegal and come with penalties, and even possible arrest for union leaders. They say they have other tools they can use but are not ruling out the possibility of an illegal strike.
New York’s biggest labor actions of the past year
February 28, 2023 // Only one other state, Hawaii, has a unionization rate higher than New York’s 20.7%. In the public sector, just around two-thirds of New Yorkers are in a union. In 2022 alone, nearly 200 workplaces in the state filed for representation through the National Labor Relations Board. But, despite the hype and a 57-year high in Americans’ approval of labor unions, New York’s union participation (and the country’s as a whole) is still trending downward. In 2012, 23.2% of New York workers were union members, 2.5 points higher than it is today. CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies Labor Department Chair Ruth Milkman said that despite 2022’s historic union victories, many were with small firms. “So all this publicity and media attention to these iconic companies that have had some recent experience of successful unionization, it’s kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of the whole labor market in New York,” she said.
City Workers Losing Patience With Slow Crawl to Union Contracts
January 31, 2023 // Most city employees are now working under expired labor contracts that lapsed as far back as 2020 — frustrating rank-and-file union members whose anticipated pay raises are tied up in an escalating battle over proposed changes to retired colleagues’ health coverage. Nearly all of the city’s roughly 300,000 unionized staff are working under expired collective bargaining agreements. They include members of the city’s largest public sector unions, District Council 37 (DC37) and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Administrative workers, school crossing guards, teachers, police detectives, sanitation workers and health technicians are among those eager to bargain for raises as well as potential new benefits, such as flexibility to work remotely.
What’s in the agreement that led to the end of the New York City nurses’ strike
January 12, 2023 // Under the agreement at Montefiore, new safe staffing ratios will be implemented in the emergency department. This will come with new staffing language and financial penalties if safe staffing levels are not met in all units. Also included are a 19.1% compounded wage increase, a commitment to creating 170 new nursing positions and lifetime health coverage for eligible retired nurses.
More than 7,000 nurses from 2 New York City hospitals on strike over staffing concerns
January 12, 2023 // Tentative contract agreements were reached with a majority of the hospitals under strike warnings. However, Mount Sinai Hospital, representing approximately 3,625 nurses, and Montefiore Bronx, representing approximately 3,500, have been unable to come to a deal.
Hospitals to Cancel Elective Procedures, Discharge ASAP as Nurse Strike Looms: Sources
January 6, 2023 // In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for Mount Sinai said that their bargaining teams "continue to make good-faith efforts to pursue a contract with NYSNA that is fair to our community and responsible with respect to the long-term financial health of our organization. Mount Sinai nurses deserve the best possible working environment, wages, and benefits, and we're tirelessly pursing these to all our employees' advantage." The statement added that the hospital system is "prepared for staffing changes, and we will do our best to ensure our patients' care is not disrupted and will do everything possible to minimize inconvenience to patients." The average salary for nurses in New York is $93,000, and $98,000 in NYC, nurses union and the GNYHA confirmed. However, there is a big disparity between nurse pay in private vs public hospitals, where salaries are almost $20,000 less.
Nurses at 7 New York City hospitals set strike date
January 2, 2023 //
More than 1,000 doctors-in-training at Bronx hospital announce unionization
November 3, 2022 // A major unionization effort is underway among the 1,200 physician trainees at Montefiore Medical Center, who are raising concerns about staffing and other issues at the Bronx hospital. Resident physicians and fellows at Montefiore will announce their plans Tuesday to join the Committee of Interns and Residents of SEIU — a health care union that currently represents about 22,000 residents, interns and fellows across the country.