Members of SEIU Local 1199 are celebrating a new three-year contract with Middletown’s Garnet Health Medical Center. Union members previously picketed the hospital earlier this month, after their contract expired in September. The new contract, passed on a 638-to-8 vote, includes a 15% raise over three years, improved job security, increased base pay, and significantly higher on-call pay according to the union. 

“Recruitment and retention for us is this is going to be game-changing for us," said phlebotomy specimen processing technician Sandra Gray. "You know, it got to the point where we could no longer hire our own students. This is really going to be a big deal for us to help our staffing crisis." 

But the union is not done fighting. SEIU members at Garnet Health Medical Center Catskills, Sullivan County’s only hospital, are still trying to get their contract done.

Spectrum News 1 has reached out to Garnet Health and has not yet heard back.

“If they're going to go out and picket, I'll go up there and picket with them," said Middletown Surgical Technologist Dawn Cholewka. "At the end, we're all 1199. And again, unity is what gets the job done.”