(ALBANY, NEW YORK) - United University Professions (UUP) President Fred Kowal has released the following statement on the New York State Nurses Association’s (NYSNA) Strike at several New York City Hospitals:

Nurses are amazing, dedicated people who give their all on the job every day.

They care for and comfort patients, they calm family members and do all they can to make a distressing situation like a Hospital stay as unnerving as possible.

Yet, these crucial Caregivers are expected to work long days, deal with unsafe patient loads and treat patients in buildings that lack simple safety precautions like metal detectors and other means to keep guns out of Hospitals.

Add to that the indignity of being underpaid while New York City hospital executives routinely pull down multi-million-dollar salaries.

UUP strongly supports our nearly 15,000 NYSNA Siblings who went on Strike and are walking picket lines at some of New York City’s biggest Hospitals.

UUP stands with them.

Our Nurses deserve a fair and equitable agreement, not excuses from multi-millionaires who use their finances to put down rather than lift up their Employees.

Nurses deserve far better than that.

UUP is the Nation's largest Higher Education Union, representing more than 42,000 Academic and Professional Faculty And Retirees.

UUP members work at 29 New York State-operated Campuses, including the State University of New York’s (SUNY) Public Teaching Hospitals and Health Science Centers in Brooklyn, Long Island and Syracuse.

UUP is an affiliate of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA) and the AFL-CIO.