"We're asking to be taken care of": Nurses at 12 New York City hospitals begin voting on possible strike
NEW YORK -- Nurses at 12 of New York City's major hospitals have begun voting on a possible strike.
They're fighting for better wages, quality health benefits and mores staff -- all things that would help with the nurse staffing crisis.
CBS2's Jennifer Bisram talked with a longtime nurse who says it's a last resort, but one that thousands of nurses are prepared for.
"To us, when we were once called heroes during COVID-19, now what are we? We are the same nurses that got our patients well, that got everyone through that pandemic to this point, and we're asking to be taken care of," Michelle Jones said.
Jones has been a nurse since 1985. Most of those years have been at Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens, a COVID hotspot during the pandemic.
"It was more death than we saw, or some of us have seen, during our nursing career," she said.
She says even her decades-long career caring for patients didn't prepare her for COVID. That's one reason why she's fighting for a better contract.
"Now with COVID and having our coworkers passed on, people take early retirement. They relied on traveler nurses, agency nurses. That is like putting Band-Aid on great big wound," Jones said.
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She tells CBS2 the last increase nurses with the New York State Nurses Association got was before the pandemic.
"They are offering us 3 percent, which is not even cost of living," Jones said.
Nurses started voting on possible strike Friday.
"It would mean we would have to pay more out of pocket," Jones said.
This potential strike would affect 17,000 nurses who work at 12 hospitals in the five boroughs:
- Montefiore Medical Center
- Mount Sinai Hospital
- Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West
- NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University Medical Center
- Richmond University Medical Center
- Wyckoff Heights Medical Center
- BronxCare Center
- Brooklyn Hospital Center
- Flushing Hospital
- Interfaith Medical Center
- Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center
- Maimonides Medical Center
"It's very stressful," Jones said.
If nurses do walk off the job, they would have to give hospitals 10 days notice so temporary help can be brought in. Hospitals maintain they are negotiating in good faith.
But with the flu, COVID and RSV on the rise, Jones says nurses need safe staffing, fair wages, quality health benefits and adequate PPE -- now more than ever.
"We are not abandoning our patients. We don't want to. That is not our goal," Jones said. "They don't want to go on strike, but they give us no choice."
Nurses say their contracts expire on Dec. 31. That means a strike can be authorized as early as Jan. 1.
Nurses we talked with both off and on camera say they are hoping it doesn't come to that.
A statement from NewYork-Presbyterian says in part that the hospital respects and values all their nurses and that it continues to bargain in good faith.