New York — New York City Nurses are on strike They say they have resumed contract talks with another of the major hospital systems affected by the strike, now in its fifth day.
The New York State Nurses Association said on Friday that its negotiating team began meetings with counterparts at the three affected Mount Sinai hospitals on Friday morning at the request of a mediator.
The union met Thursday night with New York-Presbyterian officials and a federal mediator in the first negotiations in nearly 15,000 nurses. I got off work on Monday.
Both sides said the hours-long meeting ended with little progress made to end the largest strike of its kind in the city in decades.
The hospital said in a statement that discussions focused on addressing the union’s concerns about staffing levels, but it still considered the union’s proposals “unreasonable.”
The union said it submitted revised proposals that hospital officials rejected without presenting a counterproposal. She also said the talks continued past midnight and were monitored by about 70 nurses after proceedings were eventually opened to rank-and-file union members.
The two sides said there are no other plans to meet yet.
“While we remain far apart, we are committed to negotiating in good faith,” New York-Presbyterian said in a statement. “We are committed to safe staffing and have the best staffing ratios in the city.”
Meanwhile, union negotiations have not yet resumed with Montefiore, the third major hospital system affected.
The union previously said it had done so He is expected to be seated with officials from the Bronx health care provider on Friday, but the hospital disputed that claim, saying no meeting was ever planned.
“NYSNA nurses respect mediators and are ready and willing to come to the negotiating table when they call,” Nancy Hagans, president of the nurses union, said in a statement. “We urge hospital executives to do the same.”
Each medical center negotiates with the union independently, and not all hospitals run by the three health care systems are affected by the strike.
The affected hospitals say their operations have been running smoothly since they hired thousands of temporary nurses to keep emergency rooms and other facilities open during the strike.
Dr. Philip Ozoah, president of Montefiore Einstein in the Bronx, one of the hospitals affected by the strike, praised those still on their jobs.
“Another day, another miracle,” he wrote in a letter to employees. “Thank you so much to our amazing teams, our most complex and difficult mission continues…providing life-saving care.”