On the picket line in NYC: Striking nurses are determined to win
Jan 25th marked two weeks of the largest nurses' strike in New York City history.
Today, Jan. 27, marks the 16th day of the largest nurses’ strike in New York City history. On Jan. 12, over 15,000 nurses from 10 hospitals in the NewYork-Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, and Montefiore systems went on strike with the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) demanding improvements in worker and patient safety, and better health benefits, working conditions, and pay.
On the picket line at Mount Sinai-West, an ICU nurse who has worked at the hospital for over seven years, Mary, told Workers’ Voice that “the main thing we’re fighting for is safe staffing ratios and health care.”
“Nurses need health care too,” Mary said. “I’m trying to start a family, and having a child is so expensive.” Even though she works at Mount Sinai, her current health plan doesn’t cover services in the Mount Sinai hospital system. Mary noted that better health care is a particularly crucial demand for the numerous older veteran nurses, who have worked at their hospital jobs for decades.
Many older nurses on the picket line concurred, including Julie, a woman nearing retirement who has been a nurse for over 30 years. Julie highlighted safe staffing ratios as equally crucial for her well-being. “Typically, we could care for patients in a 1 to 2 ratio and some even need one-on-one care, especially babies in the ICU,” she said. “But sometimes we’re assigned to look after four or five patients at a time, and we can’t even take a break.”
A number of nurses reported having been harassed and assaulted by dissatisfied patients and their families who felt they were not receiving enough attention from overworked staff. According to the NYSNA and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), workplace violence has been on the rise in hospital settings, with nurses and direct care aides as the most common victims.
“It happens all the time,” Julie said. “They start yelling at you and hitting you, and you can’t even defend yourself. And when we call security, the nurse is already hurt and there’s no support. Sometimes the nurse even gets all the blame.”
Hospital executives have responded to the strikers’ demands with union-busting tactics and dishonesty. Hospitals offered 1400 temporary nurses up to $9000 a week to cross the picket line, while Mount Sinai and Montefiore management spread misinformation to portray striking nurses as greedy, demanding 40% raises and an average salary of $250,000. The union countered that the figures were misleading and exaggerated by including the cost of health care and benefits and failing to account for the difference in pay scales for nurses with advanced degrees and specialized certifications.
The NYC Central Labor Council reports that “management is threatening to cut health care for frontline nurses, refusing to agree to workplace violence protections, despite two recent incidents of violence at New York City hospitals, and trying to undo safe staffing standards that nurses won for New Yorkers when they went on strike 3 years ago.”
The NYSNA strikers turned out for the Jan. 23 rally in Union Square in solidarity with Minneapolis, joining over dozens of unions in connecting their labor struggle with the struggle for immigrant rights. “As a part of our contract demands, we’re asking hospitals to do their part to keep our immigrant patients safe,” an NYSNA representative said, addressing the rally attendees. “That includes keeping ICE out of hospitals and refusing to collaborate with ICE.”
On Jan. 25, NYSNA also shared a statement on Instagram by National Nurses United, demanding justice for CBP agents’ murder of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse: “The nation’s nurses, who make it their mission to care for and save human lives, are horrified and outraged that immigration agents have once again committed cold-blooded murder of a public observer who posed no threat to them. … ICE agents have been kidnapping hard working people—mothers, fathers, and children—and now murdered a registered nurse, one of the most trusted professions in the country.
“National Nurses United calls for a no vote on the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that is up for Senate approval next week and demands Congress abolish ICE entirely.”
The movement for immigrant rights is inextricable from the labor struggle. Over a quarter of the nurses in the city are immigrants themselves, and as the New York City nurses on strike have demonstrated, the workers are ready to leverage their labor power to defend themselves and their communities. Grassroots projects to defend New York from immigration crackdowns, like Hands Off NYC, must stand in clear solidarity with the labor movement. Imagine if the thousands of attendees at rallies, Know Your Rights sessions, and ICE watch trainings came together, went door to door, and turned out all our neighbors to the nurses’ picket line!
Photo: AP
First published here by Workers’ Voice
