Union health-care workers picket Bon Secours over wages, staffing shortages

Several hundred union health-care workers picketed outside Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis on Friday, May 23, pressing WMCHealth for higher wages, stronger benefits and more staff at a moment when Orange County patients are already feeling the strain of a tight labor market. The action also hit MidHudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie and Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, showing the dispute is stretching across the region, not just one local campus.

For Port Jervis and the surrounding area, the fight is about more than pay scales. Bon Secours is an 86-bed acute-care and medical-surgical hospital with another 42 beds for long-term care, and WMCHealth says it has served Orange County and nearby communities for 100 years. If nurses and support staff continue to leave for better-paying hospitals, that kind of turnover can ripple through bedside care, delay service and make it harder to keep experienced workers in place.

Union leaders with 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East say compensation at WMCHealth is lagging behind both the cost of living and what nearby hospitals pay. At MidHudson Regional, one nurse said the hospital trains new nurses only to lose too many of them to employers offering better wages and benefits, a cycle that undercuts staffing stability and patient care. Technical workers at MidHudson Regional have also gone nearly two years without a first contract, underscoring how long the bargaining has been dragging on.

The picket comes as WMCHealth, based in Valhalla, operates across Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan and Delaware counties. The network says it employs more than 12,000 people and nearly 3,000 attending physicians, with Westchester Medical Center serving as the region’s only Level 1 Trauma Center for adults and children. That scale means a labor dispute at one hospital can quickly become a broader concern for patients, especially in communities that rely on Bon Secours and Good Samaritan for emergency, medical and surgical care.

The union has pointed to WMCHealth’s finances and executive pay as evidence that more money could be directed to frontline workers. The system’s 2024 budget projected operating income of $14.8 million, while a later 2025 budget document projected a 2024 loss before unrealized gains on investments. WMCHealth has also recently invested in new services, including a renovated and expanded behavioral health unit at MidHudson Regional Hospital that opened May 1 with support from a $3 million Dutchess County investment.

The dispute lands in a network that has shown it can reach deals before. WMCHealth and NYSNA announced a three-year agreement in 2023 covering more than 200 nurses at HealthAlliance Hospital, and a five-year agreement in 2022 covering more than 1,500 nurses at Westchester Medical Center, Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital and the Behavioral Health Center. For Orange County families relying on Bon Secours and nearby WMCHealth facilities, the outcome now could shape whether hospitals can recruit and keep enough staff to maintain steady care.