This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA.
On Friday, January 27, nurses and their allies entered their second day of an occupation at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) members, both active and retired, camped out in the hospital lobby, pledging to stay until the hospital honors their contract. This was to stop management’s attempts at doubling healthcare rates for retirees, which is not what was agreed upon in the contract.
Nurses, understandably, are fed up with these violations. As one NYSNA nurse said in a union press release “I gave my body, my strength, and all my energy to NewYork-Presbyterian. Their violation of the contract and its impact on retired nurses, who have spent their whole lives here, feels like a betrayal.”
Healthcare workers who give their lives over to their employer deserve at the very least to be taken care of when we are finally able to retire. Shame on NewYork-Presbyterian and kudos to the nurses who are fighting for what is rightly theirs!
