Some 1,300 registered nurses at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center told the hospital they will strike at 7.30 a.m. on January 3, 2012. The nurses are in the New York State Nurses Association, which has strike notices at two other hospitals, Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center. The union must give 10 days’ notice of a strike. Mount Sinai negotiations continue Thursday, Montefiore talks resume next Tuesday.

The St. Luke’s-Roosevelt nurses have worked without a contract for a year. Health benefits are a key issue at the bargaining table for NYSNA. Nurses currently do not contribute to insurance premiums. But the union lost a major arbitration decision this summer, and as a result they must start contributing to premiums in new contracts.

In a statement, NYSNA’s bargaining director, Nancy Kaleda, said that St. Luke’s-Roosevelt’s “response to our concerns about affordable health care did not meet our members’ needs.” She added that while some progress was made on staffing issues during the negotiations, “the health care issue carries huge weight for our members and their families.”

In early November, Frank Cracolici, president and CEO of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt, wrote in an internal email to hospital employees that the principal contract issue is health benefits for the nurses, who are covered by a plan provided through the NYSNA Benefits Fund. He said that management has “made a concerted effort to offer them a fair and equitable benefits plan as part of a new collective bargaining agreement,” and that the proposal adhered to the June arbitration decision, which said that the nurses must start contributing toward premium payments.

“All of our non-union staff members have been contributing to their benefits costs for many years, as is the norm for most Americans,” Mr. Cracolici wrote in the memo. “While we are being thoughtful and respectful of our nurses, we also are asking them for reasonable terms in a new contract.”

The hospital did not immediately have comment Thursday.

This week, the three hospitals facing possible strikes took out a newspaper ad. The ad copy said that the hospitals “have the greatest respect for our hardworking and dedicated nurses.” They said they want to negotiate a contract that compensates nurses fairly but takes into account the hospitals’ current shaky finances. “Unfortunately, instead of trying to resolve our differences,” reads the ad, NYSNA’s strike threat “is in no one’s best interest—especially not those of our patients.” The ad copy also says the hospitals have proposed “generous” wage hikes and made offers on health benefits, but the nurses insist on health insurance benefits “that are more generous than anyone else in the industry, with no co-pays and zero premiums.”

(Source: Crains New York)