strikes solidarity & , New York nurses mix protest with party as they fight for ratios and demand 1200 nurse vacancies be filled

On January 9 this year, 7000 nurses took to the streets of New York City, frustrated by workplace negotiations that failed to address their biggest concern – a dire lack of nurses in two of the city’s major hospitals.

With placards and loud-hailers the nurses sang and chanted for three days, protesting against short-staffed hospital floors where crowded conditions were putting patients at risk and causing extreme stress and burnout.

In the days leading up to the protest, the New York State Nurses Association issued strike notices for 12 hospitals across the state – enough to motivate all but two to return to the negotiating table and offer better workplace contacts (agreements).

But nursing staff from Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx stood firm – despite being offered a whopping 19% pay rise.

As NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane explains, their grievance “wasn’t about money, it was about their communities”, as both hospitals struggled with serious overcrowding and understaffing, exacerbated by a combined shortfall of about 1200 unfilled nursing positions.

While management largely blamed a national nursing shortage for the vacancies, the union claimed not enough was being done to attract and retain nurses. Members also believed their poor, disadvantaged centres were losing resources and funding to more affluent districts.

For Montefiore, the protest centred around 700 unfilled roles, and a severely besieged emergency department struggling with failing infrastructure.

“Montefiore is in the South Bronx which has some of the poorest health outcomes in New York state. It also has the busiest, if not the busiest emergency rooms in New York City,” Pat explained.

“Part of the issue was that the emergency department itself really needs renovation and restructuring.

“Technically (infrastructure improvements) are not a mandatory subject for bargaining under United States labour laws but these nurses made it one.”

“Patients are literally toe-to-toe and nurses have a hard time just navigating through two patients – through the physical space – they were literally moving stretchers around so they could get to patients and do their job.”

The band aid solution to such diabolical, almost third-world conditions was to shuffle patients off to other units already struggling with bed shortages because of economy drives.

“To decompress the ER they would transfer patients, but there was no room– so they’d actually set up beds in hallways – we call them hallway patients.”

She said Montefiore nurses were also pushing for staffing ratios, currently in place in other departments, to be rolled out to emergency.

Mount Sinai on the other hand did not have staffing ratios at all. They also had more than 500 unfilled nursing positions.

“For Mount Sinai nurses, the strike was really about getting ratio and enforcement mechanisms in a contract

– it was about staffing and the need to provide proper care to the community,” Pat said.

The determination of Mount Sinai and Montefiore nurses to set aside pay increases and fight for their communities resonated strongly with the public, so when they took to the streets in January, they were not alone.

“They had so much community support,” Pat said.

“A lot of the protesters weren’t even nurses they were members of the community and other unions because they were really fighting for care in their community, for them.”

“There were even agency nurses who were working while the strike was on who ended up …joining us on the line even though they weren’t members –it was incredible.”

“It’s not easy for nurses to go out on the street, and we never want to discourage people from coming in for care either. But when conditions get to a certain point that it’s unsafe for them, we have this ethical obligation.”