The longest nurses’ strike in Long Island history ended yesterday, as 450 members of the New York State Nurses' Association went back to work at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center. The nurses struck the center for 111 days when negotiations with a new management group deadlocked over staffing levels and health insurance (see WIT for Nov. 27, 2001). Under the new three-year contract, the nurses will receive fifteen to nineteen percent raises, health retirement benefits, and the minimum staffing level and mandatory overtime regulations that many of the nurses felt was the central issue.
See "Sweets Ease Way as Nurses Return", ERIK HOLM, Newsday, March 17, 2002