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The second week of the New York City nurses’ strike has ensued, entering its ninth consecutive day. With private Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and New York-Presbyterian hospitals rejecting commonsense proposals from the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) for maintained healthcare/pension rates, appropriate pay raises, increased staffing and support, and action to prevent workplace violence, over 15,000 nurses from the two Mount Sinai locations, and New York-Presbyterian have been forced to hit the picket line.
Only half a decade removed from a pandemic where many of these same nurses put their lives on hold and at great risk, it becomes hard to rationalize their employers making them choose between equitable wages and maintained benefits. In present time, however, where compassion’s taken a backseat to wanton cruelty, austerity has become a regular practice. With egregious cost-cutting encouraged and normalized by oligarchical soldiers like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman, the idea of not granting healthcare workers equitable healthcare coverage is both ironic and a new norm.
It must be stressed that the current Administration cannot truly be held liable for what this problem is born of. Of course, the greed of the private hospitals is a matter that has long preceded Donald Trump’s ascension to the Presidency, and the mandate he has given to Silicon Valley robber barons to spread their technofeudalist neo-Thatcherist philosophies. While not the root of this issue, there is still an overarching anti-labor culture present in America that emboldens the practices of Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and NY-Presbyterian management. The volatility of the Trump economy has additionally provided a worthy scapegoat for the hospitals to claim a lack of funds at the bargaining table.
Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and NY-Presbyterian are far from skint, though, and their nurses know it. These hospitals’ lies are blatant enough for most common outsiders to ascertain. Beaufort and I made our way to the picket line on its fourth day to gain a better understanding of the conflict. A lively scene in quintessentially frigid New York weather, the protest highlighted healthcare workers’ growing frustrations, with marches around the block accompanied by chants such as “more patients, no profit”. As with many northeastern strikes, however, the moment also encapsulated a prideful sense of labor solidarity, in a state which routinely ranks amongst the highest in union membership. Passing cars and trucks honking en masse in support, doctors stopping in the hospital bridge above to salute, live music being played, and large donations of food and coffee to the picketing/their families by empathetic businesses and individuals.
Graciously inviting coverage to their labor dispute, I was led by a union representative to Celeste Dance, a nurse who could speak on the matters at hand, “It’s about money for a lot of us, of course, but they’re also trying to take our healthcare benefits. I have two young children. We’re here every day caring for patients, and they can’t even give us that?”, she stated on the rejected proposals for maintained benefits with requisite pay increases. Speaking to more in the fenced area, another nurse, Ashley, further noted the need for reasonable staffing and support, describing how management budget trimming was coming to the detriment of these adequacies, stating, “Their cost-cutting is coming at the cost of their staff”.
It was clear from these interactions and others how the proposals put forth by the NYSNA stand as fundamentally rational. Anyone with enough practical cognisance understands the principle of getting paid an equitable sum for their labor. If nurses are putting in more work and tending to patients in hospitals that are not properly staffed, they should be paid an amount that reflects this. Moreover, rejecting proposals of improved workplace violence protections, and the notion of cutting pension and healthcare benefits from healthcare workers themselves, are injustices one shouldn’t realistically entertain the rationality of. If Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and New York-Presbyterian management held dignity toward their healthcare workers, their collective bargaining agreement would include the NYSNA’s outlined proposals.
