NURSES in New York City have reached a deal with two major hospital organisations to end a strike over staffing levels, workplace safety, health insurance and other issues.

Announced on Monday by the nurses’ union, the tentative agreement involves the Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospital systems. Nurses remain on strike at NewYork-Presbyterian.

The walkout began on January 12, prompting desperate efforts to hire legions of temporary nurses as scab labour.

The three-year proposal affects roughly 10,500 of the some 15,000 nurses on strike at some of the city’s biggest private but non-profit hospitals.

Nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospitals are now voting on whether to accept their new contracts. If the tentative deals are ratified, they will return to work on Saturday.

In a statement, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) president Nancy Hagans said: “For four weeks, nearly 15,000 NYSNA members held the line in the cold and in the snow for safe patient care.

“Now, nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems are heading back to the bedside with our heads held high.”

The union said the tentative agreements called for a 12 per cent pay rise over three years and the maintenance of nurses’ health benefits.

New protections against workplace violence and provisions addressing artificial intelligence in hospitals are also part of the proposed deals.

Meanwhile, NewYork-Presbyterian said it had agreed last the weekend to a proposal from mediators that includes pay rises, preservation of nurses’ pensions and health benefits and higher staffing levels. 

The union said no deal had been reached and the strike was continuing.

Jennifer Lynch, on strike at NewYork-Presbyterian’s Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Manhattan, said: “It’s incredibly frustrating that other employers are willing to give fair contracts to their employees and ours has yet to do that.”