Landmark safe-staffing mandate marks Buffalo Hospital Nurses' new pacts

[Sherman A1]

By TOM CAMPBELL
Editor
Western New York Labor Today and PAI

Buffalo (PAI) — A landmark mandate for safe-staffing ratios–benefiting both patients and nurses–is the highlight of new contracts covering 2,500 staffers, mostly nurses, at three Buffalo hospitals. Communications Workers Locals 1133 and 1168 represent the workers.

While the pacts do not contain any actual ratios, they’re modeled on a California safe-staffing law, proposed federal legislation and a New York state law scheduled to start Jan. 1, said Debora Hayes, CWA’s area director.

They also represent a breakthrough in the campaign by CWA and other unions representing nurses, especially National Nurses United, to mandate such safe staffing nationally, overcoming the greed of—and lobbying by–both hospital chains and insurers.

The insurers ruthlessly demand cuts in patient care, including short-staffing and early evictions of convalescing patients, in their quest for higher profits for shareholders and bigger salaries and bonuses for corporate honchos.

https://labortribune.com/landmark-safe-staffing-mandate-marks-buffalo-hospital-nurses-new-pacts/