Nurses at NYC public hospital system win ‘largest salary increase ever’

Nurses at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), the city’s public hospital system, have won salary and pay parity increases for most staff nurses—a victory that better aligns the public sector nurse salaries with private sector pay under a new 5.5-year contract, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) announced Monday.

The terms, which the hospital and union struck hours before the July 31 deadline, will ensure NYSNA nurses receive two years of pay parity wage increases of $16,006 in year one and $5,551 in year two, as well as salary hikes of 3%–3.25% over the remaining three years of the contract. The “largest salary increase ever for public sector nurses” will amount to “an increase of at least 37% over the life of the contract for all full-time members,” according to NYSNA.

“Our members said that we needed pay equity to stop the hemorrhage of nurses leaving H+H for higher pay in the private sector, and the city was forced to agree,” Sonia Lawrence, NYSNA’s director at large and president of NYSNA’s NYC H+H/Mayorals Executive Council, said in a statement.

In a Bronx Times op-ed published in March—just after the city’s contract with the nurses expired on March 2—Lawrence estimated that “a new nursing graduate in the public sector will now make $19,000 a year less than her private sector counterpart.” The city’s public hospital system primarily serves low earners as well as uninsured and underinsured New York residents, and says it “welcomes everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, religious beliefs, immigration status, or ability to pay,” according to the H+H website.

About 8,000 nurses will benefit from the new contract, which aims to improve staffing ratios at H+H’s 11 acute care hospitals and extend nurse-to-patient ratios to other H+H facilities, according to NYSNA.

The hospitals will also create a “new system-wide float pool to improve staffing throughout the hospitals and reduce nurse floating and use of expensive temp travel nurses,” according to NYSNA.

H+H President and CEO Mitch Katz estimated in May at a City Council hearing that the system had spent $549 million on ~2,000 agency and travel nurses in the 2022 calendar year due to “the persisting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic”—an effort that contributed to a projected $118 million operating deficit through March 2023, according to a public letter from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.

The contract comes after nearly six months of negotiations between NYSNA, which has about 42,000 members statewide, and H+H, whose nearly $10 billion budget is partially subsidized by City Hall. The two parties were unable to reach a voluntary agreement and called in an arbitrator, according to City Hall and NYSNA.

“After many months of bargaining without a resolution, we agreed to go to mediation and then an expedited impasse arbitration process in order to get to a conclusion as quickly as possible,” Office of Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion said in a statement. “While we are disappointed that the arbitrator, in light of the unique and extraordinary circumstances, did not agree with our position that the award should be pattern-conforming, we are hopeful this award will reduce reliance on temporary nurses.”

In a statement, Katz added that the new contract will encourage more nurses to seek employment at H+H.

“We also believe that this will make the position more competitive in the market, ultimately reducing our reliance on temporary staff,” he said.