Nurses and other frontline hospital workers picketed on Friday, calling for fair wages and benefits in union negotiations with WMCHealth.

Several hundred workers joined picket lines at MidHudson Regional in Poughkeepsie, Good Samaritan in Suffern, and Bon Secours in Port Jervis. The hospitals are part of the WMCHealth network, the nonprofit healthcare system with 13,000 workers across 10 hospitals and dozens of specialty practices, as well as skilled nursing, home care, and mental health centers.

“I train new nurses here. And I’ll be honest: too many leave, because they can go right down the road and get better wages and better benefits,” said Dawn Johnson, a registered nurse at MidHudson Regional Hospital for the last 10 years. “The work we do is valuable. And it’s time WMCHealth recognized that value with fair pay, retirement security, and safe staffing. When nurses get what we need to stay, patients get better care.”

A spokesperson for WMCHealth did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment for this story.

Technical workers at MidHudson Regional have been without a first contract for nearly two years, while workers at all three hospitals – members of healthcare workers union 1199SEIU – say their wages aren’t keeping up with the area’s soaring cost of living and too many workers still don’t have pension benefits.

According to the 1199SEIU, WMCHealth, headquartered in Valhalla, brought in nearly $3 billion in operating revenue in 2024, at the same time the nonprofit health system paid its top executives millions, the union said.