The city’s public hospital system has agreed to resume contract talks with nearly 1,000 of its doctors this week in hopes of averting what could be the largest doctors’ strike in city history.
New York City Health + Hospitals, its staffing affiliates Mount Sinai and Physician Affiliate Group of New York and the labor union Doctors Council SEIU have agreed to continue negotiations with third-party mediation, according to Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman from the mayor’s office. The union sent a 10-day strike notice to four public hospitals last week, stating that their employer failed to offer them adequate compensation after 15 months of bargaining and implemented a new contract that slashed their benefits without consent.
The parties have agreed to come back to the bargaining table on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The 10-day strike notice is still in effect for now, meaning physicians could walk out of four hospitals including Jacobi Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital, Queens Hospital and South Brooklyn Health on Jan. 13 if a deal is not reached. State law bars most public employees from striking, but because many H+H doctors are employed by private staffing companies, they are eligible to walk out.
The resumed contract talks come after Mayor Eric Adams sent a letter late Friday to the Doctors Council, Mount Sinai and the Physician Affiliate Group of New York asking them to continue bargaining with a “mutually agreeable” mediator for the next 60 days, noting the “critical winter months” when hospitals contend with injuries from freezing temperatures and respiratory illnesses.
“A strike of physicians at four public safety net hospitals in three boroughs poses substantial risks to the health and safety of the city’s patients and communities,” Adams said. The mayor did not commit to allocating additional funding to the public hospital system.
Dr. Frances Quee, president of Doctors Council and a pediatrician at an H+H Gotham Health clinic in the Bronx, said that the doctors are still hopeful that they will reach an agreement imminently.
“We are optimistic that we can reach a settlement between now and January 13 if NYC H+H, PAGNY, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine are willing to return to the table with a fair deal for the frontline doctors,” Quee said.
