South Shore University Hospital nurses weigh strike as contract expiration nears

Hundreds of nurses at South Shore University Hospital are prepared to go on strike unless a deal is struck before their contract expires Friday.

The nurses, represented by the New York State Nurses Association, are seeking a three-year contract and are demanding safe staffing levels, increased wages and benefits the union said are needed to recruit and retain staff.

The union represents more than 42,000 members across the state, including more than 900 at South Shore.

The union plans to hold a rally Wednesday outside the hospital with other labor allies and elected officials to announce the results of its strike authorization vote, which ends Wednesday. 

Jenna Kuhn-Plaza, a registered nurse at the hospital who sits on the bargaining committee for the union, said the strike vote is happening because the hospital has been "going after our members or even scaring some of the newer nurses, saying they could get fired over a strike." Kuhn-Plaza did not provide additional details.

The union alleges that hospital management engaged in unfair labor practices and “interfered with the federal law rights of its employees" by "engaging in retaliation, interrogation, and surveillance," NYSNA said in a statement.

Barbara Osborn, vice president of public relations for Northwell Health, said in a statement the health system has “not received any details regarding the union's claims” of unfair labor practices but would review and respond to any such allegations. New Hyde Park-based Northwell, the state's largest private employer, owns and operates the Bay Shore hospital.

Claims of unfair labor practices against South Shore did not appear on the National Labor Relations Board’s website Tuesday.

“We respect our team members' decision to participate in this vote,” Osborn said.

Kuhn-Plaza, who's been with the hospital for 15 years, said while the union secured staffing ratio concessions in 2023, South Shore nurses want to make sure that staffing ratios are maintained when members take breaks. 

The union did not say how much it was looking for in wage increases, but Kuhn-Plaza said pay increases were necessary to attract and keep needed staff.

“We want to be able to maintain safe patient ratios so we need to be able to recruit nurses who will be here long term,” she said.

"The hospital has met with NYSNA negotiators for 11 sessions since starting negotiations at the end of November,” Osborn said. “We continue to bargain in good faith for a successor contract to the one that will expire on February 28."

The next bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, she said.

Nurses at South Shore had previously negotiated a contract in 2023 with Northwell that gave them an average pay increase of 19% over three years. Prior to the expiration of their contract then, nurses at the hospital had authorized a strike with a 99% vote in the event that a deal wasn’t reached by the end of February 2023. Nurses' starting salary at South Shore was $99,476, the union said at the time.

In November, nurses at Northwell’s Huntington Hospital voted to leave their existing in-house union to join NYSNA over concerns that the larger union would be better suited to negotiate with Northwell, the state’s largest private employer.

NYSNA, which represents 42,000 members across the state, bills itself as New York’s largest nurses’ union.