Monday 9-Jan.-2023

NEW YORK CITY- USA
EDITED BY| CHRISTIAN MEGAN
More than 7,000 nurses at two major New York City hospitals walked out Monday morning after talks to avert a strike failed overnight.

In a dispute over pay and chronic understaffing, the New York State Nurses Association said more than 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and about 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side in Manhattan would go on strike.

The walkout began at 6 a.m. EST after a weekend of negotiations and no new contract in time for the strike start date. Representatives from both hospitals were back at the bargaining table Monday.

“Actually Nurses don't want to strike. Bosses have pushed them to do by refusing seriously to consider their proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms their patients,” the union said in a statement late Sunday.

The Nurses Association had initially warned that it would strike at all 12 hospitals with union contracts at the same time – but several struck tentative deals in recent days, including two new agreements late Sunday evening.
Union leaders and supporters, at a news conference Monday, highlighted staffing shortages as the key reason for a strike.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James stood with workers, reminding the crowd that the strike is about patient care, not money. James also said the Department of Health has failed to enforce a law that was passed last year in New York that requires hospitals to have safe staffing.
source:USA