Public hospital residents reached a tentative deal with their employer, New York City Health + Hospitals, to raise their pay on Tuesday, winning pay parity with peer hospitals in the private sector.
The six-year contract, which has yet to be finalized, offers public hospital residents a 9% pay bump retroactive to 2021, according to the labor union Committee of Interns and Residents, which represents 2,300 physician trainees at H+H.
Physician trainees will see an additional 3% pay bump in December and another 3.25% increase in 2025, the union said. The contract also offers residents an equity adjustment to align pay with private sector peer hospitals, ranging from just over $1,000 for physicians nearing the end of their training to $4,000 for those in their first, second or third years.
First-year trainees will see their pay immediately increase from $66,000 to $76,000, an increase that aligns with pay at private safety-net hospitals, the union said. The contract will raise first-year residents’ pay by 23% over the course of its lifetime.
The deal comes following nine months of largely stagnant negotiations between residents and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, in which residents have persistently called attention to poor working conditions and low pay. Earlier this month, they filed 500 staffing violations against H+H to draw attention to challenging working conditions at the city’s public hospitals.
Representatives from the mayor’s office and the public hospital system did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Low pay was the main sticking point of the negotiations, and the residents see the wage increases as a major victory, the union said. But the city also agreed to increase their meal stipend and make an additional $82,000 investment in the patient care trust fund this year, a pool of money the union uses to pay for hospital equipment and fund public health projects. The administration previously floated a proposal that forced residents to choose between patient care trust fund investments and their own pay, the union said.
The residents will vote to ratify the contracts between May 31 and June 5, according to the union. If the contract is ratified, it will apply to all of H+H’s 11 public hospitals except Elmhurst Hospital, which has a different process to raise wages because its doctors are employed by Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. Residents at Elmhurst won an 18% pay increase last year.
Amanda D'Ambrosio , 2024-05-29 22:59:26
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