Public-sector nurses at NYC Health + Hospitals are getting their biggest pay bump ever after an arbitrator intervened in stalled contract negotiations with the city’s hospital system and labor officials. On Monday afternoon, the arbitrator made a binding decision to award the nurses a contract that will increase their pay by about 37% over five-and-a-half years.
The New York State Nurses Association, the nurses’ union, says the win will put the nurses’ salaries on par with their private-sector counterparts and make it easier to fill some 2,000 vacancies across the public hospital system.
“I feel that we have accomplished a great victory for our nurses, but more so for the patients and the communities that we serve,” said Sonia Lawrence, president of NYSNA’s executive council for NYC Health + Hospitals/Mayorals. “The underserved, the uninsured, the underinsured, the undocumented, the asylum-seekers – I think it’s a victory for all patients that have been discriminated against.”
NYC Health + Hospitals nurses, whose salaries currently start at $84,744, still need to vote on whether to ratify the new contract this week.
If they do, their salaries will jump $16,006 in the first year of the contract and $5,551 in the second year, according to NYSNA. The nurses will receive more modest raises of about 3% in each of the remaining years of the contract. The deal also requires hospital officials to improve nurse staffing levels and hire more mediators to address disputes over staffing on different units.
High turnover among nursing staff has been a major challenge for all New York City hospitals since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and other health care institutions have agreed to significant raises in recent union contracts.
Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, testified at a City Council hearing in March that the gap between public and private sector pay – which amounts to nearly $20,000 for new nursing graduates – has
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