Nurses at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn avoided a strike by signing a new contract with the hospital system.
Members of the Federation of Nurses/UFT ratified a new contract on Thursday, raising the salaries for the nurses by a compounded 15.8%, according to a press release. The contract also requires the hospital to hire 100 additional nurses to address understaffing.
With the agreement, the nurses called off a potential strike.
"The contract gives our nurses the respect they deserve by raising salaries and requiring NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn to hire the nurses they need to safely staff their hospital," said Anne Goldman, head of the Federation of Nurses/ UFT, which represents over 1,000 nurses at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn. "This opens the door to improving staffing, recruitment and retention and provides the economic equity our nurses have long deserved."
The two-year agreement:
- Provides a wage increase of 9.25% effective March 1; and an increase of 6% effective March 1, 2026, for a compounded increase of 15.8% over the next 12 months.
- Increases staff nurses' base pay to $125,282 by the end of the contract.
- Resolves the outstanding short-staffing complaints and pays nurses who worked the understaffed shifts a combined $1 million.
- Requires NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn to post 100 full-time nursing positions by March 1 to help alleviate the chronic understaffing.
- Provides a one-time retention bonus ranging from $3,750 - $5,250 for nurses who remain in the same unit and shift for at least 18 months.
- Preserves premium-free health care.
- Guarantees an employer-paid pension.
"We had a focus - to increase our base salary to equal or surpass what was offered by the surrounding hospitals. We were determined to make this happen, for fairness and to be in a better position to recruit and retain nurses," said Moncef Righi, a nurse and union chapter leader at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
