Members of local 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East are voting this week on whether to hold a one-day strike at the North Shore-LIJ Health System and four other New York metropolitan area hospitals if no contract agreement is in place by July 30.
George Gresham, president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, said Tuesday that 70,000 union members who would be covered under the contract were voting on whether to stage a one-day strike which would take place on July 31 if a contract agreement is not reached by July 30.
“As nurses and healthcare workers, we never want to strike and we take this decision very seriously. But we have been negotiating with management for five months, they do not have a single proposal on the table, and they are severely threatening the quality of healthcare and jobs for New Yorkers,” Grisham said in a statement.
Negotiations between and the North Shore-LIJ Health System and four other New York metro hospital systems are continuing with an extension of the workers’ existing contract through July 30, according to union spokesman David Bates.
“We agreed to extend the contract because we feel that negotiations are going in the right direction. But the issues are still contentious,” Bates said on Monday.
Montefiore Hospital, NYU University Hospital, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City are also involved in the negotiations with 1199 and, with North Shore-LIJ, employ approximately 50,000 1199 members. Approximately 14,000 workers at 11 hospitals in the North Shore-LIJ system are 1199 members, according to North Shore-LIJ spokesman Terry Lynam.
The 1199 membership includes nurses, nurse aides, social workers, emergency medical services workers, techs, lab workers, pharmacy workers, dietary workers, housekeepers, and other caregivers in medical centers, hospitals, nursing homes and affiliated facilities.
The one-day strike would start on July 31 at 6 a.m. and continue until 6 a.m. on Aug. 1, Bastes said.
He said the union would notify hospital management of the strike vote outcome on Thursday, satisfying the requirement for a 10-day notification of a planned job action.
Bates said an “emergency committee” of union workers, including nurses, would be standing by at every hospital facility that would be affected. He said the union doesn’t expect the one-day strike would adversely affect patients.
“This is to send the strongest message we can,” Bates said of the threatened one-day strike. “Nurses and workers don’t want to strike, But this is a tool of last resort. We’ve tried everything we can.”
The union had conducted one day of what Bates called “informational picketing” at the respective hospitals on June 18
He said management has not made a proposal to the union in five months of negotiations.
Bates said allowing non-union workers at hospital outpatient facilities to join the union is one major issue in the current negotiations with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes, which is representing the hospitals in the 1199 talks. Bates said some of those workers, including housekeepers, nursing assistants, and clerks are being paid $10 or $12 per hour.
The other major issue, Bates said, is the hospitals’ effort to increase employee contributions for health and pension benefits, a proposal he said union negotiators are resisting.
In his statement, Grisham said North Shore-LIJ and Mount Sinai have been opening outpatient facilities “with substandard, non-union jobs which drag down wages, health benefits and standards for workers.”
Grisham also said the five largest health systems had over $21 billion in revenue last year while he said executive compensation has been “skyrocketing.” He said the hospitals can afford “good, middle-class union jobs” at outpatient facilities.
Efforts to reach the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes for a comment were unavailing.
In a recent statement on the negotiations, Bruce McIver, president of the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes, said, “We have no intention of taking away benefits. We are committed to achieving a positive outcome that protects health benefits for members and their families and ensures the long-term stability of New York’s not-for-profit hospitals and nursing homes.”
