Centerlight Nurses Are Ready to Do Whatever It Takes
For months, NYSNA nurses at CenterLight Healthcare have been advocating for better working conditions and improved care for their homecare patients. They have been fighting for a new union contract with strong wages and healthcare benefits and have faced repeated resistance from management. In December 2024, management unlawfully cut off their health insurance benefits after nurses refused to accept an “offer” that would have quadrupled their health care costs.
Since then, nurses have been working without health benefits, putting their health and safety at risk. But they’ve also been busy organizing by launching a website highlighting CenterLight’s corporate greed, gathering community petition signatures, sending letters to the CEO, engaging elected officials to call out CenterLight’s unlawful behavior and speaking out in the press.
On April 3, nurses delivered a strike notice to management after the supermajority of nurses voted to authorize an unfair labor practice strike.
CenterLight nurse Reena Pradhan Singh, RN, said, “We voted to authorize a strike because of Centerlight’s illegal behavior and working in these conditions is unsafe for us and our patients, and nurses are fed up. Most of us are women of color and many of us have chronic illnesses and continue to put our health and safety on the line to care for patients. We have delayed visiting doctors when sick, have unfilled prescriptions, and are constantly worried we might get hurt or get one of our patients sick—I feel like I’m living in a nightmare. This is no way to take care of the New Yorkers who need care the most.”
Striking is always a last resort, and nurses have made it clear they are prepared to bargain at any time to reach an agreement. On Tuesday, April 8, management started to take nurses’ concerns seriously and came to the bargaining table to negotiate with the help of a mediator. NYSNA nurses are ready to continue bargaining until they win a fair contract with the fair wages and benefits that nurses deserve. If management leaves them no other option, nurses will begin their unfair labor practice strike on Monday, April 14.
All 42,000 NYSNA members are in solidarity with CenterLight nurses!