- 15,000 New York City nurses strike due to unreconciled issues with major hospital systems.
- Hospitals hired temporary nurses to maintain operations during the strike.
- Nurses demand improved staffing ratios and workplace safety for better care.
Around 15,000 nurses in New York City went on strike Monday after negotiations weren’t able to yield any breakthroughs in disputes with three major hospital systems. The nurses with the New York State Nurses Association are striking over benefits, staffing and other issues, according to media reports.
“It’s how they’re treating us: They don’t want to give us a fair contract, and they don’t want to give us safe staffing, and now they’re trying to roll back on our benefits,” said Tristan Castillo, a nurse in an emergency department, according to The Associated Press.
Amid the strike, the hospitals remain open and have had to hire temporary nurses to fill the gap in labor.
Nurses are striking at private nonprofit hospitals — not city-run ones. Even so, this could be a significant test early in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration. The democratic socialist mayor who campaigned on a pro-worker platform visited nurses on the NewYork-Presbyterian picket line.
“These executives are not having difficulty making ends meet,” said Mamdani, who praised the work of the nurses, per the AP. He said they were looking for “dignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve. They should settle for nothing less.”
“Our nurses kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable,” Mamdani added.
The striking nurses have been visited by a variety of Democratic state and city politicians, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul sent health officials to the hospitals to keep an eye on patient care. According to the AP, the governor made a statement calling for both sides to reach a deal that “recognizes the essential work nurses do.”
According to The New York Times, the three medical institutions targeted by the strike are Montefiore Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia and Mount Sinai Hospital. This includes Mount Sinai’s two satellite campuses.
What are the nurses on strike asking for?
While the work stoppage is happening at three medical centers simultaneously, each hospital is negotiating independently with the union. A number of other hospitals across New York City and its suburbs recently secured deals to avoid possible strikes.
The nurses’ specific demands vary by hospital, but staffing and workplace safety are the main issues. The New York State Nurses Association is also asking for limitations on the hospitals’ use of AI, per NBC News.
The union says a strike is needed to make hospitals ensure minimum staffing ratios to prevent nurses from being overwhelmed with too many patients. They are also asking for higher wages and heightened security to lower the number of violent episodes and shootings, per The New York Times.
The current staffing standards were set after thousands of nurses from Mount Sinai and Montefiore went on strike in 2023 because of understaffing. That strike ended when the hospitals agreed to hire more nurses and set strict minimum staffing ratios. Nurses say that a strike has once again become necessary since hospitals are trying to get rid of the standards set in 2023.
“Wealthy hospitals are trying to undo the safe staffing standards we won for our patients when we went on strike three years ago,” Nancy Hagans, the president of the nursing union, said, according to The New York Times.
According to NBC News, the 2023 strike lasted three days and resulted in a 19% raise in pay over three years at the two hospitals.
The hospitals have been preparing for the strike for weeks by securing travel nurses to keep the medical centers up and running. Hospitals not affected by the strike have been asked to prepare to accept patients transferred from the affected hospitals.