Nurses at three Northwell Health campuses in Manhattan have called off their strike, after threatening to walk off the job at 8 a.m. on Monday. But negotiations over a new contract with Northwell are ongoing, and nurses say it’s still possible they will strike in the future.
The contract negotiations involve about 1,500 nurses represented by the New York Professional Nurses Union at Lenox Hill Hospital and the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital on the Upper East Side, as well as Lenox Health Greenwich Village.
Northwell and the New York Professional Nurses Union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract last week, but union members voted not to ratify it, forcing the two parties to go back to the negotiating table, according to Niamh Girdusky, a Lenox Hill nurse who serves on the union’s executive board.
“I definitely would love to avoid a strike,” Girdusky said. Still, she added that she was encouraged by her fellow union members’ willingness to reject the tentative agreement. “They want to fight for more and they believe that they deserve better, and it’s a really great way to show Northwell that we are not to be messed with and that nurses do deserve the best,” she said.
The Northwell nurses are demanding salary increases that would put them on par with other hospitals that have negotiated pay raises in recent years, as well as commitments to improve nurse-to-patient ratios and preserve other staffing protections.
Northwell spokesperson Barbara Osborn did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the state of negotiations on Monday but said last month that the health system was “committed to reaching a fair and equitable contract that supports our nurses and maintains the high quality of care our community deserves.”
Osborn previously said any health care facilities affected would “remain fully operational” if a strike were to occur.
