‘We’re asking for very basic things’: 15,000 nurses are on strike in New York City

The largest nurse walkout in New York City history has entered its fifth day, with no signs of ending quickly as negotiations continue. The nurses union began striking at three private hospital systems after months of unsuccessful talks surrounding health care benefits and staffing shortages.

The strike, which the nurses union said involved 15,000 nurses, illuminates a growing divide between health practitioners and hospitals as the industry faces major upheaval amid federal administrative changes. 

Medical centers in the Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian systems remain open.  The hospitals have spent more than $100 million on temporary nurses to maintain patient care, including paying for their lodging, according to The New York Times.

The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) has condemned hospital management, saying they failed to agree to fair contracts with striking nurses, whose broad demands include guaranteed health care benefits for nurses, improved security measures for staff and patients and better staffing ratios, which union representatives say have been unsatisfactory.

“Montefiore, Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian need to get serious about meeting our demands for safety,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a press release on Thursday. “Instead of investing millions in fighting their own nurses, hospital executives need to do the right thing and work with us to improve safety.” 

The association said that the hospitals have proposed slashing nurses’ health care benefits, cuts it estimates would impact approximately 44,000 nurses. 

The hospitals have denied the union’s claims and said that the nurses’ requests are unreasonable.

“We’re not asking for $220,000 a year, we’re not asking for a 40 percent increase in our pay or anything like that,” said Caroline Terris, a registered nurse who is part of the strike. “We’re asking for very basic things like safety for our patients, safe patient ratios, making sure that the patients get the care that they deserve.” 

Terris, 29, has been in the health care profession for five years and works at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. During this time, she told The 19th, she had witnessed a gradual shift in the health care industry, particularly since President Donald Trump assumed office. 

In November, the Department of Education excluded nursing as a professional degree through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which also suggested making major changes to student loan offerings and repayment plans.

“A very big part of that is all the professions that were claimed as non-professional were all women-led professions or female-dominant professions, and I think that that’s very interesting given the kind of social climate that they want to create in America,” she said. 

The decision to reclassify nursing aligns with the general attitude that Terris says she has seen take hold. 

“It has been such a huge change in everything,” she said. “And even just going on social media, you see people are like, ‘Well, they shouldn’t be professional … because they don’t do anything.’ And it’s just that energy has really changed from being heroes in 2020 to now having to fight for basic rights.”

More than 7,000 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center went on strike in 2023 to protest understaffing at their centers, an issue that was then exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which strained hospitals around the country. In that case, the strike lasted three days. 

Health care workers have now found themselves on the picket line protesting the same issues that had previously been addressed when both Montefiore Bronx and Mount Sinai hospitals first agreed to establish new staffing ratios. It’s unclear how long the affected hospitals can sustain themselves as the strike continues, particularly as the country enters flu season.

If contract negotiations fall through, nurses like Terris worry about what it will mean for other health care providers in the country.  

“I really do think that if this goes more pro-management than pro-patient and pro-nursing, then we’re gonna see a really bad trickle-down effect of other hospitals not paying for their employees’ insurance, not giving them wages that compete with inflation,” Terris said. “They’re gonna be looser with their laws. Also, AI is a very big thing that is up and coming in health care, and nurses wanna be able to sit down and give their input on it so it’s actually for good and not for bad.”

The NYSNA alleges that Mount Sinai previously unlawfully disciplined 14 nurses who denounced workplace violence or spoke to their peers about contract negotiations. The association also claims that Mount Sinai terminated three labor and delivery nurses mere hours before the planned walkout, in an attempt to undermine the strike. 

Mount Sinai CEO Brendan G. Carr denied the accusations, including the nurses’ cause for protest, on the hospital’s website, stating that the three employees were disciplined following complaints that they were interfering with patient care by refusing to provide medical supplies to temporary nurses, and that the hospital has not suggested reducing health benefits.

“On Monday, we saw 20 percent of our scheduled NYSNA nurses decide not to participate in NYSNA’s strike, and yesterday we saw similar numbers — hundreds of nurses joining their teams at the bedside,” Carr said in a press statement on Wednesday. “I remain grateful to our nurses who have come to work, to the traveling nurses who came to help us, to nursing leaders who have been working around the clock, and to the many other individuals who are working incredibly hard to make up for their absent colleagues.”

The hospital rejected claims that staffing levels have not improved, stating that the nursing vacancies have decreased over 80 percent. “In just the last three years we reduced our system-wide number of nursing vacancies from 514 in 2022, to just 92 today, while adding 1,000 new nursing positions over the same 3-year period,” it said. 

Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who heavily courted labor unions during his campaign to lead New York City  — released a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the strike. “No New Yorker should have to fear losing access to health care — and no nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits or less dignity for doing lifesaving work,” he wrote on Sunday, ahead of the scheduled walkout. “Our nurses kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable.” He joined nurses on the picket line on the day the strikes began.

Mount Sinai declined to comment beyond public statements. NewYork-Presbyterian and Montefiore did not respond immediately to requests for comment. NewYork-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai are in negotiations with union representatives. 

“Our goal is to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with union leadership that reflects our respect for the important role our nurses play,” NewYork-Presbyterian wrote on its website on Monday.  “We remain hopeful that we can accomplish this soon. We want to reassure you that your safety and care remain our top priorities. We have taken the appropriate steps to continue to provide the same level of care that you, and the communities we serve, have come to expect.”