SIUH/NYSNA NP Negotiation Update – March 21, 2021

This past Thursday and Friday, Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) and the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) met virtually for our 17th and 18th negotiation sessions.

In a good-faith effort to springboard the negotiations to more meaningful topics, SIUH started off by agreeing that provisions such as seniority, pay periods, grievance process and safe patient handling, which appear in the hospital’s staff nurses’ contract, will apply to nurse practitioners (NPs) without changes. We were hopeful that our movement on these issues would pave the way for the parties to focus on tailoring the remaining non-economic items in recognition of the key practice distinctions between NPs and staff nurses. Disappointingly, the union continues to not recognize the unique relationships that exist between advanced clinical practitioners – such as NPs – and physicians and residents.

It’s crucial that we resolve these last remaining non-economic issues before advancing the negotiation to economic topics, such as wages and benefits. We look forward to diving into some of these tough issues at our next session on March 26 – a session at which both parties have agreed to welcome in a private mediator to help accelerate the negotiations.

To stay up to date on the progress of negotiations, please sign up for text message alerts by texting SIUHNP to 77295, and visit our website for SIUH NPs.