Nurses Strike Vote Passes in Staten Island

Members of the New York State Nurses Association warned Staten Island Community Board 1 of the risk of a nurses’ strike over contract negotiations with Richmond University Medical Center.

The comments came at the monthly community board meeting, held at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Two association nurses raised safety concerns about inadequate staffing at the hospital. They advocated for more “safe staffing” to ensure better care.

“Safe staffing means you have a nurse-patient ratio that is followed and adhered to the best of the ability of the hospital,” explained Diane Donaghy, president of the NYSNA Staten Island Local Bargaining Unit and a Registered Nurse at RUMC. “It ensures that your family member, your loved one, is going to be taken care of.” 

Karen Holdman, Case Manager at RUMC, stated that nurse-to-patient ratios at the hospital are among the highest in the city, ranging from 8-to-1 to 12-to-1.

A leading cause of this ratio is the inability to attract nurses due to the lower wages, said Donaghy. She stated that the wage gap between RUMC nurses and those at Staten Island University Hospital varies between $6,000-14,000 a year. This financial divide is also reflected in the patients at RUMC or SIUH.

“There is a huge difference in the clientele that the two hospitals serve,” Donaghy said, “our patients are more struggling families that need more help from the community.”

Contract negotiations started in October 2018. Nurse leaders recently sat down with the hospital representatives to reach a deal. Donaghy was concerned that a failure to come to an agreement could have disastrous consequences for the patients at RUMC.

According to the LBU President, RUMC nurses voted 98% in favor of a strike. “The last thing a nurse wants to do is strike,” Donaghy insisted, “but we need to take care of our patients and we need to take care of our families.”

Nurses’ strikes have been an effective bargaining tool in the past. When nurses at Tufts Medical Center in Boston went on strike in 2017, the hospital was obligated to move patients to other hospitals and divert incoming care elsewhere. RUMC will have to consider this risk. In the past year, nurses at SIUH, Mount Sinai, New York-Presbyterian, Montefiore and used the threat of strikes to secure a landmark agreement that ensured annual 3% salary increases, the filling of vacancies, and a new hiring budget. 

Although a strike has been agreed to, there is no set date for a strike to be held as talks continue, said Patricia Kane, Treasure of NYSNA. 

“I love my job, I love the community,” Donaghy declared, “Staten Island is a developing community. We are looking to build. But we need to staff the hospital in order to do it.”

Declining to comment on the negotiations, Alexander Lutz, a spokesman for the hospital, said that “we value each and every one of our nurses and thank them for their continued dedication and commitment to the patients of Richmond University Medical Center.”