Nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospital systems have reached tentative agreements with management to end a historic strike that began nearly a month ago, the New York State Nurses Association announced Monday.
The agreements with Montefiore, Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West in the Bronx and Manhattan were forged late Sunday and early Monday morning, according to a statement from the union.
They included provisions for 12% salary raises over three years, maintaining current health benefits and maintaining and enforcing safe staffing standards and protections against workplace violence, the union said.
“For four weeks, nearly 15,000 NYSNA members held the line in the cold and in the snow for safe patient care,” NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said in a statement. “Now, nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems are heading back to the bedside with our heads held high.”
An agreement with New York-Presbyterian has still not been reached and the approximately 4,200 nurses in that hospital system are back on the picket lines. Staffing levels continue to be the main sticking point.
Nurses at all three hospital systems have complained they are often assigned too many patients for one nurse to take care of safely.
New York-Presbyterian did not immediately return a request for comment.
Nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems will vote on whether to ratify their contracts starting Monday and continuing through Wednesday. If the contracts are ratified they will return to work on Feb. 14.
