From today’s New York Times:
The nurses accused the hospital bosses of cowardice, claiming that the executives were hiding in an office, afraid to show their faces. Both sides called each other liars.
That is how a key day of negotiations between the New York State nurses’ union and several major hospitals ended recently, as the largest nurses’ strike in New York City history dragged on.
Until this past weekend, few signs of progress had emerged at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, where most of the negotiations have unfolded in lower-level offices.
“Both parties do seem to be really dug in,” said John August, the program director of health care labor relations at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
On Saturday, the 20th day of the strike, however, there were signs that the two sides were looking for a path forward. The hospitals and the union presented revised proposals and issued statements that sounded less antagonistic than before.
“We streamlined and revised our proposals in an effort to bring hospital executives back to the table to negotiate in good faith and settle fair contracts as quickly as possible,” the nurses’ union, the New York State Nurses Association, said in a statement on Saturday.
After three weeks of labor strife, it became clear that both sides had re-engaged, with the two sides each sharing new offers and agreeing to resume negotiations on Monday.
Read the complete story here.