Haitian American nurse leader rallies thousands to strike for safer conditions 

NEW YORK — Hundreds of nurses, lots of them of Haitian descent, went on strike Monday following stalled contract negotiations between the New York State Nurses Association and 10 personal hospitals.

“Our key sticking factors in negotiations proceed to be secure staffing for our sufferers, safety from office violence and well being look after frontline nurses,” stated Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Affiliation, throughout a press convention kicking off the deliberate strike.

She was flanked by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, amongst quite a few officers, who got here to point out help for the strike from three of the town’s largest well being care programs: Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian. The strike continued Tuesday, with no confirmed details about when it’d finish.

Ramatulah Sow, a nurse who has labored at NewYork-Presbyterian for 17 years, was among the many demonstrators exterior the hospital headquarters in Washington Heights.

“I’m right here for a good contract, for my sufferers, for my pension, for all the pieces,” Sow stated.

Hagans, who’s Haitian American, leads a union that represents a workforce comprising a big variety of immigrants, many from Haiti and the Caribbean. Whereas there isn’t a precise information on what number of nurses in New York Metropolis are Haitian or of Haitian descent, nationwide and state information present that Haitian and Caribbean immigrants make up a big share of the well being care workforce.

The Migration Coverage Institute acknowledged in a 2023 report that greater than 103,000 Haitian immigrants labored in well being care nationwide as of 2021. The determine makes Haitians the sixth-largest immigrant group in that discipline within the U.S. Many work in nursing-related and well being care help roles corresponding to nursing assistants or residence well being aides. Within the state of New York, immigrants account for about 37% of the health care workforce, roughly twice the nationwide common.

Metropolis Council member Mercedes Narcisse, a nurse who can be Haitian American, chairs the physique’s Hospitals Committee. She joined the decision for improved working circumstances.

“Nurses belong on the bedside, not on a picket line combating for what they need to be given,” Narcisse stated in a statement. “My fellow nurses deserve a good contract that displays the work they do day-after-day and the care they supply to our communities.”

Administration for NewYork-Presbyterian stated in a statement reported by THE CITY that they’d provided important wage will increase and new measures to keep up secure staffing and office security.

Voices raised amid circumstances decline 

From the chilly winter morning into the late afternoon Monday, the demonstrators chanted “Nurses are exterior, one thing’s flawed inside” and numerous slogans. Amplified by a vocalist taking part in drums and accompanied by an electrical guitarist and other people on horns, they belted out the basic protest corresponding to, “We’re fired up, can’t take no extra.”

From contained in the hospital, a surgeon donated espresso and donuts because the afternoon solar dipped and nurses’ voices grew to become hoarse.

Sow, who moved to New York in 1998 from Liberia, has lamented a decline in circumstances for nursing professionals.

“They don’t wish to give us a good contract. They don’t wish to give us secure staffing,” stated Sow, a nurse for 22 years. 

“They don’t look after the sufferers, and we now have to combat for secure staffing, for our pension and for our well being care,” she stated.

The walkout echoes related strikes in recent times. In 2023, nurses staged strikes at Mount Sinai in Manhattan and Montefiore within the Bronx, additionally citing staffing shortages and unsafe circumstances. 

However NewYork-Presbyterian’s Columbia College Irving Medical Middle, typically referred to as Columbia Presbyterian, had not seen a strike because the Nineteen Nineties, in response to Jennie Osborne, a nurse who has labored on the hospital on and off since 2005.

Holding an indication referencing the pandemic — “Keep in mind Covid-19? The place are your pots and pans now?” — Osborne stated the hospital as soon as took satisfaction in caring for its staff.

“This hospital was once, once we say ‘wonderful,’ it actually was,” she stated, referring to the slogan “Keep Wonderful” displayed on signage exterior the constructing. “We had been handled like kings and queens as workers.”

Now, she stated, hospital administration appears to desire to slash worker well being advantages and refuses to strengthen office security protections, together with steel detectors and contract language that safeguards sick depart when staff are injured on the job.

That essential demand comes as hospitals are seeing extra violence. Simply 4 days earlier than the walkout, a affected person allegedly went on a violent attack at New York-Presbyterian’s Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

“What we’re asking for, primarily, is medical insurance,” Osborne stated. “After we’re injured, we don’t wish to have to make use of our personal sick time for that damage as a result of it’s a workplace-related damage.”

If a nurse has no sick time out there, Osborne stated, that particular person is pressured to take unpaid depart or start the method of submitting for incapacity.

“They’re pressured to both not receives a commission whereas they’re out,” she stated, “or they should go and begin submitting for incapacity.”

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