Nearly 1,000 doctors within the city’s public hospital system are planning to strike later this month amid what they say are stalled negotiations to improve their pay and benefits.
The labor union Doctors Council SEIU delivered a 10-day strike notice on Thursday to four public hospitals, including Jacobi Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital, Queens Hospital and South Brooklyn Health. The physicians are planning to walk out over unfair labor practices, claiming that their employer has failed to offer adequate compensation after 16 months of negotiations and that management implemented a contract that slashed benefits without the union’s consent.
A representative from New York City Health + Hospitals did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The doctors will go on strike on Jan. 13 if management does not come back to the negotiating table. The strike would mark the largest work stoppage of attending physicians in city history, the union said.
Although the doctors work at public hospitals, they are employed by private staffing affiliates including Mount Sinai and Physician Affiliate Group of New York, meaning they are not subject to state laws that prohibit public employees from going on strike.
The strike warning comes as labor movements among nurses, residents and attending physicians within the public hospital system have gained momentum in recent years. Public sector nurses won 37% wage increases in a contract they secured in July 2023, and residents at Elmhurst Hospital earned pay bumps that same year that aligned with trainees in the private sector.
More than 2,500 attending physicians at H+H continue to negotiate a labor agreement that expired in September 2023. The doctors say that the health system has not offered competitive wage increases in the city’s tight labor market, pushing many to seek jobs elsewhere and creating a staffing crisis in facilities that primarily serve low-income New Yorkers and people of color. Some doctors in specialties such as gastroenterology make 40% less at public hospitals than their peers in the private sector, said Dr. Frances Quee, president of the Doctors Council and a pediatrician at H+H/Gotham Health Belvis.
After months of stalled labor negotiations, hospital management declared an impasse and unilaterally implemented a new contract in October that cut some physicians’ sick time by 20% and reduced vacation days, Quee said. The union has filed unfair labor practice complaints against the hospital that are pending before the National Labor Relations Board.
Many physicians who work at public hospitals are aware that H+H does not provide salaries and benefits that measure up to the city’s private hospitals, said Dr. Michael Jones, director of the emergency medicine residency program at Jacobi and member of Doctors Council.
“But you do have to provide a livable salary,” Jones said. He said the contract that the hospital has implemented offers some small increases in wages, but those are offset by reductions in paid time off, sick time and health benefits including dental coverage.
“We don’t take this action lightly,” Jones said. “But we believe that it is in the best interest of the global good of the city of New York for us to push Mayor Adams and Health + Hospitals to commit to fully funding the health care system.”
