Doctors at three of the city’s public hospitals have voted to reject their new labor contract, opening up the possibility of a large-scale physician strike for the second time this year.
Physicians who work at Jacobi Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital and Harlem Hospital voted Sunday to strike down the deal, according to Doctors Council SEIU, the union which represents the physicians. The vote comes two weeks after the union reached an agreement with New York City Health + Hospitals and the private staffing companies it contracts with to employ its attending physicians.
“The results of the voting process reflect the diverse realities faced by doctors across NYC Health + Hospitals,” union President Dr. Frances Quee, said in a memo sent to members on Monday and reviewed by Crain’s. Quee said the union is committed to working with members at hospitals that voted against the tentative agreement to go back to the bargaining table.
The deal started to break down after some union members expressed disdain for what they say was a lack of transparency in the bargaining process and an agreement that failed to address concerns about recruiting and retaining new doctors. Some doctors criticized agreements that did not include back pay, despite nearly a year and a half of negotiations without a contract. The agreement with Elmhurst Hospital, for example, did not offer base salary increases dating back to the start of negotiations in September 2023, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by Crain’s. It is not clear if this provision was included within contracts at other hospitals.
The physicians work at the public hospitals but are employed by the private company Physician Affiliate Group of New York, meaning that they are exempt from state laws barring public employees from going on strike. The union did not answer a question about whether the doctors have submitted a strike notice.
A spokesperson from New York City H+H and the Physician Affiliate Group of New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
Doctors Council represents the more than 2,500 public hospital doctors who have been bargaining for a new contract since September 2023. Those negotiations came to a head when physicians from four public hospitals – Jacobi Medical Center, Harlem Hospital, North Central Bronx and South Brooklyn Health – announced plans to strike in early January, claiming that their employers failed to adequately raise their pay and implemented a new contract without their consent. The physicians who voted against the new contract work at the some of the same hospitals that threatened to go on strike earlier this month, including Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital.
The planned walkout, which the union said would have been the largest doctor strike in city history, prompted Mayor Eric Adams to get involved. The mayor pushed the parties to come back to the bargaining table with a third-party mediator, and they announced a deal on Jan. 13.
Doctors from ten other public hospital facilities represented by Doctors Council voted to ratify the new contract, the union said. Quee said in the memo that the union will work to implement the new agreement across other sites.
Jan. 27, 2025: A previous version of this story misstated that Harlem Hospital was among the facilities that authorized a strike earlier this month. The story has been corrected.
