Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Staff Say They Should Get Crisis Pay From Height Of The Epidemic

Nurses and other staff at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital say that they should be paid additional “crisis pay” bonuses for the weeks they worked under the duress of the coronavirus epidemic.

Dozens of staff — some on their day off, some on their lunch break — rallied on the street outside the hospital’s front entrance on Wednesday afternoon chanting to hospital administrators that they should be rewarded for working through the worst health crisis in a century.

“Every person that works in this building, from the maintenance men to environmental services to the nurses to the doctors, everybody stepped up and came in and did what we had to do to fight through COVID-19, even though everybody was scared to death,” said Samantha Juidice, a registered nurse at the hospital since 2004 and one of the organizers of Wednesday’s rally. “All the other institutions were getting recognized almost immediately during this pandemic, including grocery store workers, delivery drivers, Amazon workers, everybody else was recognized.

“What they’ve offered us is really insulting,” she added.

The union that represents the approximately 1,200 of the hospital’s staff in nearly every category of job in the building — 1199 United Healthcare Workers East, the largest healthcare workers’ union in the country with more than 400,000 members — has asked that all of the hospital’s employees be given three weeks pay, either in direct payment or in the form of paid vacation time that can be banked for use down the road.

The nurses said that the hospital has offered just one week’s bonus pay for those who were working on the “front lines” in the emergency department or COVID-19 treatment units during the last three months, and just two days bonus pay for those who were working in wings where patients were not know to have COVID-19, but were sometimes discovered to have it.

“The staff here feels that everybody came to work and did what they needed to do,” said Linda Olsen, a nurse who had worked in one of the non-COVID units. “Everybody walked through the door, everybody was at risk. Nobody called out, nobody stayed home.”

The nurses said their counterparts at city hospitals and Northwell Health hospitals all received hazard pay and that only those at Stony Brook Southampton and Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, also part of the Stony Brook system, are still having to fight for what they say they shouldn’t even have to ask for in the wake of the epidemic.

Stony Brook Southampton officials issued a statement on Wednesday addressing the concerns of their staff, and said they are still working with the union on just compensation.

“We value the skilled work of every member of our staff,” Stony Brook Southampton spokeswoman Barbara Jo Howard said in a statement. “Our primary concern has always been, and continues to be, our employees’ safety as they provide the highest quality of care for our patients. We work every day to foster a positive work environment where all employees are valued and respected.”

The union and hospital administration have been wrestling for weeks over the crisis pay negotiations and staff had planned a similar demonstration earlier this month but held off as negotiations progressed.

But leaders of the staff said that the talks have finally come to a head.

“There was a lot of stalling and telling us they can’t do anything,” Ms. Juidice said.