Scores of 1199SEIU members, their families and local supporters held an informational picket at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, NY Aug. 23 to demand a fair contract and speak up for quality care in the Westchester community.

Lawrence workers have been in negotiations with the NY Presbyterian Health System since Oct. 2015. Contending that the Lawrence is an outlier in the New York Presbyterian network, management has refused to negotiate a contract that provides the same wages and pensions to other NY metro area Presby workers.

“We’ve been at this for nine months. We have been sitting at the table for nine months,” says negotiating committee member Andra Prince, a unit clerk/phlebotomist at Lawrence. “The people at this hospital care for this community. They are worth of the same compensation as the Presbyterian members system-wide. We don’t understand why they don’t believe we should be treated the same way as the rest of the Presbyterian family.”

1199ers held a candlelight vigil Aug. 5 that was followed by a fruitless Aug. 8 bargaining session. Presby management continues to frustrate workers with its treatment of patients and the Bronxville community.

“They keep saying we’re not like other NYP institutions,” says Samantha Pirazzi, a secretary at the hospital for 21 years. “Then why did they put their name all over everything? If that’s true, then it’s just a façade. They’re giving our patients a false impression and it’s wrong.”

Members are vowing to keep Presby’s feet to the fire in the fight for parity. And Lawrence 1199ers have a proud history of staying the course to victory: Lawrence is the site of a historic 1965 strike that led to collective bargaining rights or New York State’s non-profit hospital workers.

“It makes me feel bad that they don’t want to compensate us for the hard work that we do,” says Marcia Griffiths, an ambassador at Lawrence for 10 years. “But this fight has been going on for a long while now, and we will stay in the street as long as it takes.”