Some city doctors have reached a tentative deal to boost their pay, averting what could have been the largest physician walkout in the city’s history.
The deal, announced by Doctors Council SEIU, includes higher pay, bonuses based on years of service and a $12 million compensation pool for future market rate adjustments over the course of the contract. The union did not specify how many years the contract covers.
The agreement also reverses prior cuts to sick leave that physicians said their employers enacted during negotiations and adds Juneteenth as a paid holiday, the union said.
Doctors Council represents more than 2,500 physicians within the public Health + Hospitals system who are employed through private companies, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NYU and the Physician Affiliate Group of New York. The doctors reached an agreement with H+H and its affiliated companies in the early hours of the morning on Monday, about a week after the parties began negotiating with assistance from a third-party mediator.
Dr. Frances Quee, president of the union and an H+H pediatrician, said in a statement that she is proud that the “tentative agreement puts us on a path to enhance care – for our patients, our communities, and the dedicated doctors they entrust.”
H+H confirmed the deal. Representatives from the staffing companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nearly 1,000 doctors at four public hospitals – Jacobi Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital, South Brooklyn Health and Queens Hospital – threatened to go on strike earlier this month over what they said were stalled negotiations and inadequate pay that fueled high turnover and understaffing across the public hospital system. The doctors began negotiating the new contract in September 2023, but the union said that negotiations stopped in October after hospital executives unilaterally implemented a new contract that cut their sick leave by 20%.
The strike threat led city elected officials, including members of the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams, to intervene, and ultimately pushed the doctors and their employers to head back into negotiations with a mediator. The union reached a deal with H+H and the staffing companies in the early hours of the morning on Monday.
The union will hold a vote to ratify the contract in the coming days.
This story has been updated to reflect that H+H confirmed the tentative contract.
