BY JESSICA PARKS
Medical residents on the
front lines of the COVID-19
pandemic at Park Slope’s New-
York-Presbyterian Brooklyn
Methodist Hospital have been
operating without a contract
for months after they say hospital
administrators have been
dragging their feet during negotiations.
“We have been trying to renegotiate
our union contract
with Methodist since the fall,”
said one resident, who asked to
remain anonymous in fear of
retaliation. “And the process
has just been getting delayed
and delayed.”
Their union negotiated
their previous multi-year contract
that expired in October
2019, forcing them to work
without a stable contract ever
since — and management has
not reopened negotiations and
did not implement a scheduled
raise last November, said the
resident.
“We had planned to get
them back to the negotiation
table early this month, or late
last month, and again they
just didn’t meet with us when
we had planned and discussed
having another meeting,” she
said.
COURIER L 10 IFE, MAY 22-28, 2020
Without a contract, the residents
— who are typically postgraduates
gaining three years
experience under a senior
medical practitioner before operating
independently — work
under the expectation that the
terms in the expired contract
will be maintained without
any real protections to ensure
they are followed.
The lack of a long term contract
adds to the stress of the
coronavirus pandemic, which
has put the medics on the frontlines
and made them more important
than ever.
“All of us were happy to step
up to the plate so we got redeployed
to these specialties to
help the COVID patients,” said
the resident. “We are willing to
do anything for our patients,
but we have to hope the administration
can do the same for
us.
Another medical resident at
Methodist echoed his coworkers’
sentiment and said that
re-upping their contract would
help put their mind at ease during
the pandemic.
“I think one component to
increase stability and give us a
little control back in our lives
would be having a settled contract
and having that off our
plate as we chip in,” the resident
said.
Making matters worse, the
Brooklyn residents are not afforded
the same privileges as
their Manhattan colleagues —
such as equal housing opportunities
and the same access
to medical journals, said the
medics.
“We think that when we
take care of Brooklyn patients
we do just as good of a job
as our Manhattan counterparts,”
he told Brooklyn Paper.
“We think that physicians who
take care of Brooklyn patients
should be paid as much as physicians
who take care of Manhattan
patients.”
Hospital administrators, in
a statement to Brooklyn Paper,
NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. Google
alluded to the novel coronavirus
as a reason for the slowed
negotiations — although did
not explain why the negotiations
were not completed in the
months before the pandemic.
“We greatly value our interns
and residents, who have
worked bravely alongside our
other heroic health care workers
on the front lines of this
pandemic. We respect their
right to collectively bargain
their wages and benefi ts, and
we are eager to return to the
bargaining table with their
union later this month now
that his extremely intense and
demanding period for our hospital
has begun to subside,” the
statement read. “Our goal will
be to negotiate in good faith
to reach a fair and reasonable
agreement that recognizes the
important role interns and residents
play at our hospital.”
Yet, that was not an ample
excuse for the residents, who
said other hospitals that have
successfully renegotiated contracts
during the pandemic.
“Even during the pandemic,
there actually were
other hospitals that were able
to settle their contracts and
move things forward with
their residents,” he said. “But
we seem to have been left behind
even as the pandemic has
wound down.”
Methodist hospital residents
working without a contract
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