NYSNA Nurses at Nathan Littauer Hospital Held Informational Picket, Demanded Management Return to the Table and Invest in Safe Patient Care
For immediate release: April 24, 2025
Contact: Andrea Penman-Lomeli | [email protected] | 347-559-3169
Kristi Barnes | [email protected] | 646-853-4489
NYSNA NURSES AT NATHAN LITTAUER HOSPITAL HELD INFORMATIONAL PICKET, DEMANDED MANAGEMENT RETURN TO THE TABLE AND INVEST IN SAFE PATIENT CARE
Dozens of nurses picketed and called for a contract with enforceable safe staffing standards, a plan to recruit and retain nurses, and respectful wages and benefits for safe patient care.
Gloversville, N.Y. - On Thursday, April 24, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) nurses at Nathan Littauer Hospital held an informational picket outside the hospital to demand that management return to the bargaining table and settle a fair contract with safe staffing standards and a real plan to recruit and retain nurses for safe patient care. After seeing no movement from management, nurses escalated their call and picketed to demand that they agree to bargaining dates. They were joined by community allies, including Assembly Member Phil Steck; Seth Cohen, Capital District Area Labor Federation; Rev. Peter Cook, NYS Council of Churches; Rev. West McNeill, NYS Labor-Religion Coalition; and Mike Panzarino, CWA 1118.
As maternal health centers across the state shutter, Nathan Littauer’s maternal health services fulfill a vital need, delivering babies to families across the region. While the demands on the emergency center have dramatically increased over the past decade, the hospital has not kept up with staffing to meet those needs. The emergency room has a capacity for 20 beds and routinely has just one full-time staff member on the night shift with travel nurses filling in gaps.
Emily Orcutt, RN, said, “We are fighting for better care for our patients. When the emergency room is understaffed, it creates bottlenecks across the hospital and patients have to wait much longer for care. When we have surges in our emergency room, I fear going to the bathroom and leaving other nurses with a dangerous number of patients. This is not the care we want to give. Enough is enough. We need hospital management to take action, return to the table, and invest in patient care in this community.”
Nurses at Nathan Littauer are among the lowest-paid nurses in the state and have some of the highest health care costs in the state among unionized nurses, which leads to high turnover and understaffed units. While the hospital has submitted staffing plans to the state that outline that the maximum number of med-surge patients placed in a nurse’s care should be five, nurses are routinely given eight patients, placing patient care at risk.
Wendy Bowie, RN, said, “I was born in this hospital and grew up in this community. This community is important to me and delivering its babies is a really special thing. But I’m worried about the future of this hospital and the kind of care future mothers will receive when hospital management so obviously disregards the nurses that care for them. We want to be able to give the best care possible, but we can’t do that when we don’t have enough nurses on staff.”
Nathan Littauer Hospital administrators can afford to invest in safe patient care. The total compensation for hospital CEO Sean Fadale was over $740,000 in 2023, a 32% hike from the year prior.
Marion Enright, RN, local leader, said, “Nurses come here because we care. We’re not asking for much. But if the CEO can increase pay by over 30%, the hospital can certainly afford to offer affordable healthcare to the nurses who care for this community. We need to be able to recruit nurses and keep them here and we can only do that if we ensure these jobs are good, family-sustaining jobs.”
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, said, “Nathan Littauer is a small hospital that is essential for the care of residents in Fulton County and beyond. Rural patients deserve the same quality care that patients receive at other hospitals. That starts with respecting your nurses and offering pay and benefits that make them want to stay. Nathan Littauer nurses should know they have all 42,000 NYSNA nurses behind them in this fight.”
Last week, nurses held a speak-out after marching to the office of CEO Sean Fadale a week earlier. Nurses at Nathan Littauer Hospital are some of the lowest-paid nurses in the region and say management’s so-called “final offer” maintains low wages and high healthcare costs and would not address the turnover in the hospital that threatens patient care.
For months, NYSNA nurses at Nathan Littauer have been fighting for a contract with clear, enforceable safe staffing standards to comply with New York state law, and wages and benefits that will keep nurses at the bedside. Their contract expired on December 31, 2024. Nurses are calling attention to staffing issues and demanding that hospital administrators invest in safe patient care.
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The New York State Nurses Association represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. NYSNA is an affiliate of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, the country's largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses, with more than 225,000 members nationwide.