7,000 nurses went on strike on January 9 at two of New York’s largest private hospitals: Montefiore and Mount Sinai. And they won.
saying to themselves “exhausted and victims of burnout” due to understaffing and as their collective contract expired on December 31, nurses maintained massive and aggressive pickets in front of hospitals, carrying signs that read “On strike for better patient care”. And after three days, they won. Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, said her organization had won a “historic victory”.
“Truly terrible conditions”
Michelle Gonzalez, critical care nurse at Montefiore Hospital, said: “The strike was about our patients. Nurses and health care workers in general work in truly terrible conditions. We have too many patients who need to be seen or too many very, very sick patients assigned to us. This is why we had to take the decision to go on strike. »
The strike had three objectives, aimed at maintaining a stable and adequate nursing staff to protect the health of patients. First, set sufficient staffing levels. Second, establish a relationship between nursing schools and hospitals to attract nurses. Third, provide adequate wages to retain nurses. In the two hospitals that went on strike, the nurses won on all three points.
At ten major private hospitals in New York City, nurses filed strike notices for Jan. 9, even though union leadership hoped to avert the strike and discouraged nurses from walking out. With union leadership pushing for a deal, nurses at eight hospitals voted to sign the contracts, but nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai refused and went on strike to win ratios of staffing for patient care that can be applied, and they have succeeded. Under the agreement at these two hospitals, their management will be penalized if they fail to maintain staffing levels. If the management does not hire enough nurses, the salary that would have been paid to the missing nurses will be divided among the other nurses and paid within two months, while the patients will benefit from a reduction of 15% of their costs. This is an unprecedented and historic measure.
On the front line of struggle
“It was a phenomenal victory for us as nurses”said Michelle Gonzalez. “When we took to the streets, we told hospital CEOs that we were not going to continue working under these conditions. We will continue to fight for better conditions for ourselves and for our patients. »
Nurses not only won minimum staffing levels, but also salary increases of 19.2%. In addition, hospitals have agreed to fill vacancies, provide staff with fully funded health care and lifelong health coverage for retirees, provide education benefits, and increase payouts to pension funds.
Today, health is, after education, the second biggest activity in the USA. There are 22 million health workers, or 14% of all employees, seven million are hospital workers, and two million of them are registered nurses. Unlike many other jobs and professions, nurses are 85% female and tend to reflect the country’s ethnic diversity, with white, black, Latina and Asian nurses working and, if necessary, striking together.
Unions represent 20% of all nurses and recently there have been many strikes in hospitals across the country. In the three years of the Covid pandemic, hundreds of nurses have lost their lives and burnout has driven thousands to leave the profession. Last year alone, six unions representing 32,000 people went on strike at various hospitals across the United States. They did so with great sympathy from the public, who viewed the nurses as heroines.
In the 1970s, a time of union upheaval, socialist groups sent their members into heavy industry — steel, auto, mining and trucking — but today the priorities are different. A group called the Rank-and-File Project encourages left-wing activists to become teachers and nurses, as well as material handlers and UPS drivers. Their goal is to organize rank and file workers and strengthen the labor movement while recruiting workers for socialism.
Traduction Henri Wilno
