Thousands of NY State Health Care Workers Are Still Fighting For Safe Staffing Despite Covid-Era Law
Safe staffing laws and regulations dating back to 2021 may be on the books, but health care providers in New York State are still endangering hospital workers and patients alike. Photos courtesy of 1199SEIU
By Steve Wishnia
Contract talks at Kaleida Health, the largest health-care provider in Western New York, began March 4. The almost 8,000 workers involved are seeking “improved staffing levels and added safety protections in the workplace,” according to the two unions representing them, 1199SEIU and Communications Workers of America Local 1168.
“Without more staff, I can’t take care of my patients,” 1199 member Betty Thompson, a patient care assistant at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Williamsville, told a press conference the unions held before the first bargaining session. Their current three-year contract expires May 31.
Kaleida operates three hospitals, two nursing homes, and numerous clinics in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area, with other hospitals in Olean and northwestern Pennsylvania. The workers the unions represent include registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, technicians, social workers, and clerical, service, and maintenance staff.
Because of inadequate staffing, waiting times in the emergency room are longer, 1199 member Lisa Simmons, a patient registration representative at Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, said at the press conference. That means patients and their families get frustrated, and workers “take the brunt of it.”
A 2021 New York State law requires hospitals to form committees of administrators and frontline nurses to develop plans to set safe staffing requirements; a 2023 Department of Health regulation set a maximum of two critical-care patients per nurse. But “so far, it’s been difficult at almost every facility where we represent workers,” said CWA District 1 area director Debora Hayes.
The Department of Health’s “slow implementation of the law, almost from the moment the Legislature passed the law, has hampered efforts to measure and achieve safe staffing standards in every New York hospital,” the New York State Nurses Association said in a report released in December. In a survey of staffing on 532 shifts from 32 critical-care units at 20 hospitals across the state during the first ten months of 2024, NYSNA nurses reported that the number of patients exceeded the 1:2 ratio on slightly more than half the shifts.
Because of inadequate staffing, waits times in ER are longer—that means patients and their families get frustrated—and workers “take the brunt of it.”
Hays and 1199 administrative organizer Cathy DiFlavio said two other areas where staff is short enough to slow down care are lab technicians and pharmacists.
“We’re overworked, underpaid, and overlooked,” said medical assistant Josh Morely, a Local 1168 member who’s been working at Buffalo General Medical Center since he was 18.
In order to retain and recruit experienced staff, the unions are “looking for a robust increase” in wages and benefits, Local 1168 President Cori Gambini said. That must also include “improvements in pensions,” the unions say.
Unlike some other upstate health-care facilities, however, Kaleida management is apparently not seeking any concessions, an 1199 spokesperson told Work-Bites.
The unions are also seeking “enforceable” measures to protect caregivers from assault. They cited a spate of attacks on health-care workers in Pennsylvania within 10 days last month. In York, police said a 49-year-old man was killed in a shootout with police Feb. 24 after he invaded an intensive-care unit and took staffers hostage, killing one police officer and wounding a doctor, a nurse, a custodian, and two other police. In Scranton, the Scranton Times-Tribune reported, one man enraged that he’d been denied pain medication stabbed a hospital security guard Feb. 16, and another man being treated for “overindulgence in alcohol” injured two police officers. At another hospital, an emergency-room patient attacked two employees, punching one.
“With the recent rise of violence against health-care workers, we want to ensure strong language in the contract that protects workers on the job,” the 1199 spokesperson said.
A federal mediator will be present during the bargaining sessions, the unions said.