Employees of Peconic Bay Medical Heart picketed at the moment exterior the Riverhead hospital to demand a brand new employment contract with wage will increase akin to different hospitals, in addition to protections in opposition to artificial intelligence.
600 employees on the Northwell Well being hospital — together with nursing assistants, transporters, clerical employees and others — are members of the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Employees East union, which is negotiating a brand new collective bargaining settlement with the hospital’s administration. The earlier settlement expired in November and was prolonged by means of Jan. 10, in accordance with union officers.
Greater than 100 folks, together with hospital employees on their lunch breaks and allies of the employees, gathered on the sidewalk on Heroes Means throughout from the hospital early Monday afternoon.
Alexandra Ryan, the union’s contract administrator for PBMC’s employees, stated hospital administration supplied the unit raises of two% and three%, whereas employees of different Northwell hospitals acquired a contract with raises of seven%, 6% and 5% over three years. Some jobs on the hospital are paid 25% lower than the identical jobs at different Northwell hospitals, she stated.
“Three and a half p.c shouldn’t be going to pay your lease. We would like an honest contract,” stated Katherine Nogueras, a 20-year-old worker of the hospital on the union negotiating committee. “We now have nice advantages. We now have nice employees right here. We need to proceed as we do now, giving nice care. We’re the inspiration of this hospital and the spine. We simply need to guarantee that it stays like that.”

“We simply need honest wages. We work very laborious. We’re not getting sufficient. We’re the bottom paid hospital from Northwell,“ stated Monika Mills, a affected person care technician on the hospital.
The union can also be fearful about artificial intelligence “infiltrating our jobs,” Ryan stated. “We’re making an attempt to place protections into the contract to guarantee that if the employer goes to usher in AI, that we’re alerted of it and observed, we now have coaching positions like put in place, and we will successfully guarantee that none of our folks lose their jobs to it.”
“We’re hoping for a extremely profitable picket, which that is, will present [the hospital] and present the general public in the neighborhood that these employees deserve what each different employee has,” Ryan stated. “And this hospital will get quite a lot of donations from the neighborhood and we’re hoping that places the stress on them.”
In an emailed assertion, Jake Mendlinger, a spokesperson for Northwell Well being, wrote that the hospital is “dedicated to persevering with constructive, good-faith negotiations with 1199SEIU United Healthcare Employees East to succeed in a good contract that helps our crew members and upholds the high-quality care our sufferers deserve.”
“Peconic Bay Medical Heart respects the fitting of our crew members to conduct informational picketing. This isn’t a strike, and we need to guarantee our sufferers and the neighborhood that ordinary hospital operations will proceed with out disruption. Offering uninterrupted, high-quality care stays our high precedence,” the assertion stated.
The union and hospital will hit the negotiating desk once more on Wednesday, union officers stated.
“We hope it doesn’t get to a strike — for the sufferers sake,” stated Mary Maki, who works as a registrar and in radiology on the hospital.
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