After days of negotiations on Friday, May 26 and Memorial Day, NYSNA nurses delivered a strike notice to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital administrators late yesterday evening. NYSNA will continue to be available to bargain non-stop between now and June 12 in hopes of reaching an agreement before an open-ended strike begins.
The strike notice gives NYP-Brooklyn Methodist time to plan care for patients while nurses are on strike. The contract for nurses at NYP-Brooklyn Methodist ended on April 30, 2023, and bargaining has continued for months. Last week, with nearly all members participating in the strike vote, 99.6% of nurses voted yes to authorize a strike.
“We don’t want to go on strike, but we will if NYP gives us no other option," NYSNA member leader Sharonda Green-Carter, RN said.
"Nurses refuse to accept staffing cuts or compromise the care for our Brooklyn community in any way. We hope that NYP comes back to the table in good faith to deliver a contract with safe staffing that respects nurses and our patients.”
Nurses have been speaking out for safe staffing throughout negotiations. On May 4, hundreds of nurses and their labor, community and elected official allies picketed outside the hospital to protest NYP-Brooklyn Methodist’s proposals to cut staffing levels instead of improving staffing to protect quality care.
Since the informational picket, safe staffing has remained the sticking point in negotiations. Management has also interfered with nurses’ union rights, directed RNs to remove union stickers regarding safe staffing and our collective bargaining demands, and required management approval for union activity.
“As a long-time nurse at neighboring Maimonides Medical Center, I am outraged that NYP-Brooklyn Methodist has pushed nurses to the brink of a strike," NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, said.
"If they listened to the nurses and committed to staff their facility safely, we would not be in this situation. All 42,000 members of NYSNA are in solidarity with our union siblings as they fight for a fair contract.”
