Laboratory professionals in New York’s NYU Langone Medical Center system won landmark wage increases this April after a years-long struggle for recognition for their profession. The increases are part of an agreement that went into effect May 1 that covers 240 lab professionals at NYU Langone’s main hospital, the Hospital for Joint Disease and the institution’s Health and Hospitals Corporations affiliates, including Bellevue.



“It always felt bad when we were surveyed as number one, but we weren’t making the same money as our competitors at somewhere like Columbia,” says delegate Nilsa Espinosa, a supervisory laboratory technologist in microbiology at NYU for 33 years. “The requirements for our profession are demanding. We fought for licensure, and we thought that would be the thing that won us respect. But it didn’t happen.”



Now, every single NYU lab technologist will see an increase. Those with at least five years of seniority will receive a 10% increase; senior and lead techs will receive increases ranging anywhere from 12.5% to 16.5%. Many techs’ salaries will go up thousands of dollars.



NYU’s rank-and-file lab committee worked consistently over years and through changes in management to win the raises. Espinosa says it also came about through intergenerational cooperation.



“We older workers got the young people and explained to them how long we have been in this fight,” she says. “We made quite a few presentations over the years, and then we let them take up the fight. They made a presentation that really impressed management. It was wonderful, because it showed how we deserve to be treated like professionals.”