NYSNA members at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Morningside and West voted overwhelmingly to approve the new three-year contracts -- ending a five-week strike for more than 10,000 nurses.
"We may have differing perspectives, but we are united by our shared mission of caring for our community," said Mount Sinai Health System CEO Brendan Carr in a statement. "I am asking you to listen with empathy, support each other with respect, and commit to our shared culture so that we can emerge stronger than before."
The hospital system said that as part of the agreement, their nurses will begin returning to work Saturday morning.
The agreement represents a major step forward, but more work needs to be done as nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian voted against accepting the mediators' proposal, and will continue to strike.
"Beginning late yesterday (2/10), NYSNA brought the mediators' comprehensive proposal to a vote with the NewYork-Presbyterian nurses represented by NYSNA. The voting has concluded, and we are disappointed that our nurses did not ratify the mediators' proposal, which we had accepted on 2/8, and NYSNA leadership endorsed," NewYork-Presbyterian said in a statement.
They say the proposal includes the same wage increases for all three hospitals (4% each year), preserves the pension plan, maintains our nurses' health benefits, and increases staffing levels (65 additional staff over three years).
Some nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian had protested the vote, saying they were being pressure by the union to vote "yes" on a contract that the local negotiating team rejected.
Getting to this point for all three hospitals has taken time, as nearly 15,000 nurses walked off the job and onto the picket line, raising their voices for weeks while braving the extreme weather that had the city in a deep freeze.
Negotiations at times came to a complete halt even as nurses kept up calls for better pay and benefits, increased staffing, and tighter workplace security.
For now, the strike and their fight for a fair contract continues for more than 4,200 nurses.
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