DOWNSTATE MEDICAL CENTER CRISIS
Our colleagues in Brooklyn are facing a severe crisis that has been building over the past year. The crisis has reached its most severe point with the termination of positions of hundreds of our brothers and sisters. All of this is occurring as SUNY clearly attempts to privatize this major health care provider and medical school. It could mean the loss of thousands of our members, as well as the establishment of a dangerous precedent for the rest of us employed in SUNY. And none of this would have happened except for a series of terrible financial decisions made by the administration at Downstate Medical Center, in SUNY, and in the governor’s office. Our leadership in UUP warned the decision-makers of the ramifications, but those warnings were ignored. Read the following document for a clear description of the crisis and how it has evolved to the present time.