By NYSNA
Photos: NYSA\Facebook
New York, N.Y.—On Thursday, Aug. 22, lawyers for NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP) Hospital and the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) will head to federal court in Manhattan. NYP is attempting to obtain a temporary restraining order to prevent an arbitrator from hearing evidence in a safe staffing arbitration scheduled for Monday, Aug. 26 about conditions at NYP Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.
Nurses at NYP-Methodist allege understaffing in 4 interconnected units—labor and delivery, pediatrics, pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) and neonatal ICU. Nurses intend to testify and to show the arbitrator how more than a year’s worth of the hospital’s own staffing data demonstrate that the hospital’s persistent, flagrant violations of the safe staffing standards in the contract. According to their union contract’s safe staffing enforcement mechanism, cases of severe or chronic understaffing can be heard and ruled on by a neutral third-party arbitrator, who has the power to issue a variety of remedies. The contract’s staffing enforcement provision clearly requires the employer to accept the first date the arbitrator offers and prevents the parties from adjourning or rescheduling.
Since winning stronger enforcement mechanisms in New York City private sector contracts in late 2022 and early 2023, NYSNA nurses at several hospitals in New York City and around the state have used arbitration to hold hospitals accountable for safe staffing. Arbitration and New York’s clinical hospital staffing committee law are two major tactics that nurses have used to improve patient safety.
NYP has recently taken the unprecedented step of suing to overturn an arbitrator’s ruling that found it understaffed its cardiothoracic ICU and awarded nurses who worked extremely understaffed over $270,000 in financial restitution. Although NYP’s lawsuit will likely be thrown out, it is causing delays in the standard labor-management arbitration process.
On Aug. 9, NYP’s lawyers sent a letter to an arbitrator asking to postpone a hearing scheduled for Aug. 16 while there is active litigation. That arbitration was about NYP nurses who tracked staffing levels for nearly a year, from May 2023- March 2024, on 7 Garden North, at NYP-Milstein Hospital. It’s a high acuity step-down unit that has had consistently high turnover. NYSNA nurses were prepared to present staffing data that found that the unit was understaffed between 33% and 70% of the time each month. The arbitrator agreed to postpone this hearing.
NYP’s latest legal maneuver to attempt to stop another arbitration case from advancing may impact a second active arbitration, out of a total of five active safe staffing arbitrations NYSNA has scheduled with the hospital. Staffing problems are persistent through the NYP system, with arbitrations involving Columbia campus, Allen Hospital the Children’s Hospital and NYP-Brooklyn Methodist. NYSNA nurses are concerned that patient safety will suffer as NYP uses its substantial resources to avoid accountability for patient safety.
NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane, RN, CNOR, said: “The largest hospital system in New York City and one of the wealthiest in the state should be using its substantial resources to improve safe patient care, not fight against it. It’s disgraceful that they are spending untold amounts of money picking legal battles they cannot win but that can delay improvements to nurse staffing levels and patient safety.”
To date, NYSNA nurses have won two arbitration rulings against NYP, the first in December 2023 over staffing in the Children’s Hospital NICU, and the second in May 2024 over staffing in the cardio-thoracic ICU at Columbia. New York State law establishes a maximum of 2 critical care patients per nurse, so NYP has not only violated safe staffing standards in the nurses’ union contract, but also in New York state law.
“We fought hard for a good contract that would improve patient care by holding the hospital accountable for safe staffing,” said Aldrich Crispino, RN, NYSNA member leader at NYP-Brooklyn Methodist. “We are trying to use our voice as patient advocates to deliver the best possible care to the mothers and babies in our community. Hospital administrators should share this goal, which is why we are so disappointed that they would rather spend their money on endless delays rather than hiring and staffing enough nurses at our hospital.”
The New York State Nurses Association represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. NYSNA is an affiliate of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, the country’s largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses, with more than 225,000 members nationwide.
