More than 65,000 nurses affiliated with the union National Nurses United are poised for contentious bargaining negotiations with major healthcare systems this year over rectifying staffing and safety issues exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is nurses who have from the start of this pandemic called on the hospitals to make appropriate plans to increase staffing and increase training, to put in place clear infection control protocols. … But the hospitals didn’t listen, and the consequences have been deadly and devastating,” Khadijah Kabba, collective bargaining director for National Nurses United, said on Friday.