Nurses at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca have successfully unionized with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

The union and the hospital announced the results of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) supervised election Thursday afternoon.

The union has called for more nurses per patient, guaranteed lunch breaks with safe staffing levels, and pay that matches national standards. Eighty-two percent of nurses voted to unionize, according to the union. Cayuga United-CWA will represent over 350 employees at the hospital.

Source

Communication Workers of America? I guess I should have read up on it more because I thought they were going to join an actual nurses union.

35 minutes ago, KarenK said:

Communication Workers of America? I guess I should have read up on it more because I thought they were going to join an actual nurses union.

Nah CWA has , in the past at least , had Locals for Nurses as did our IAM , machinist union . I genuinely wish them luck with everything they can accomplish in negotiations with Centralus !

2 hours ago, KarenK said:

Communication Workers of America? I guess I should have read up on it more because I thought they were going to join an actual nurses union.

Individual nurses can join NYSMA which lobbies at the state level but doesn’t represent in the workplace ( I think ).

CWA, though they do represent utility workers like Verizon, has also been the union that represents non-nursing staff at AOMC for years as well as us.

On 1/14/2026 at 1:48 PM, KarenK said:

I believe the NYC nurses unions are all on strike right now.

Yes , and I genuinely wish them well on that as there are issues in the medical field that need to be addressed such as Nurse to Patient ratios which has gotten totally out of hand . As we all know Medicine has become more an Industry than the Art of Healing where Hospital Administrators care more for the “ bottom line “ and Stock Holders than the patient.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Nurses at Cayuga Medical Center (CMC) filed unfair labor practice charges Monday accusing hospital management of violating their union rights.

Hospital management pushed back Tuesday, saying in a statement that the allegations don’t “reflect the ongoing dialogue” between CMC and the union.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents more than 350 nurses at the hospital, filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging surveillance and retaliation tied to organizing efforts.

The union claims a manager from CMC contacted an unnamed nurse’s second employer to complain about their union activity at the hospital. 

Read the rest here.