Mike Elk, Payday Report || On Tuesday, after several other NYC hospitals had settled contracts, union leaders announced that a contract had been settled for 4,200 nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
However, on Wednesday, the union’s membership voted 3,099 to 8,637 against the contract. That means 73% of the nurses on strike voted against the contract and voted to continue the strike.
Later in the day, nurses marched on the New York State nurses union headquarters and delivered a petition signed by 1,500 nurses calling on the union to investigate two of its top executives, Nancy Hagans, the NYSNA president, and Pat Kane, its executive director, for pushing a union contract that the union’s executive committee leadership had repeatedly rejected From The City:
NYSNA’s decision to forge ahead with a vote at NewYork-Presbyterian had infuriated members who said they stood by their executive committee’s assertion that the deal did not meet their needs. NYSNA has executive committees at each of its hospitals; those committees are made up of union members who participate in contract negotiations.
Beth Loudin, a neonatal nurse and member of the executive committee at NewYork-Presbyterian, said top union leadership informed her it was moving ahead with a vote Tuesday afternoon — days after she and the committee rejected it.
“I can’t even call it a memorandum of agreement, because there’s no signature on it,” said Loudin. “This is a rush job to get a vote out, because it’s in alignment with the other hospitals. It was very jarring.”
