NUMC's CSEA: All ears on reports of 'stronger financial position'

Daily Point

NUMC employees hope for renewed contract negotiations

Here’s the latest twist in the unfolding drama over the future of the Nassau University Medical Center.

Union leaders are taking recent reports from hospital executives that the hospital and its public benefit corporation, Nassau Health Care Corp., are supposedly in better financial shape as good news for employees, according to a newsletter released last week by the Civil Service Employees Association’s NUMC chapter. That hope comes after two years of stalled contract negotiations and further delays that hospital executives attributed to the institution’s financial problems.

"Following the December 5, 2024 NHCC Board Meeting, it was reported that the organization is in a stronger financial position," the newsletter said. "This positive development has allowed us to move forward; CSEA Labor Relations Specialist Leah Donnelly has requested negotiation dates for early 2025 from NHCC Administration."

The comment emerged after NUMC Chairman Matthew Bruderman said that the hospital now has more than $70 million in cash on hand, and after he told The Point that the hospital is "profitable." And it came after the hospital board approved a resolution that made Megan Ryan the hospital’s permanent chief executive, at a salary of $550,000.

Financial statements from the hospital, however, show NHCC still has an operating loss in 2024 of $105.5 million.

The CSEA newsletter also provided a rundown of what it called the "negotiations timeline," which began in October 2022, when union leaders said an initial meeting occurred, with "no proposals exchanged, as management was not ready with proposals." The union said hospital management canceled two other meetings in 2022. Meetings in 2023 resulted in management rejecting a "rollover" collective bargaining agreement and declining to negotiate, in part due to funding constraints.

"As soon as funding is secured, they would reopen negotiations," the CSEA wrote of conversations dating back to August 2023.

A NUMC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment regarding the CSEA comments.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Deflated promise

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