Almost 15,000 nurses walked off the job in New York City, demanding better working conditions, marking the largest nurses’ strike in the city’s history as contract negotiations failed to gain traction.
Workers walked off the job early on Monday morning across three private hospital systems in the largest city in the US, Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian.
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“After months of bargaining, management refused to make meaningful progress on core issues that nurses have been fighting for: safe staffing for patients, healthcare benefits for nurses, and workplace violence protections,” the New York State Nursing Association said in a statement on Monday.
“Management at the richest hospitals in New York City are threatening to discontinue or radically cut nurses’ health benefits,” the nursing group added.
NewYork-Presbyterian reported a net income of $547m in 2024. Mount Sinai reported $114m, while Montefiore reported $288.62m, according to ProPublica’s nonprofit tracker, which monitors the finances of nonprofit organisations, which these three hospitals are.
Striking nurses claim hospital management has threatened to cut healthcare benefits. The union alleges that hospitals are attempting to roll back safe staffing standards. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the validity of these claims.
In 2021, New York state signed into law a requirement that hospitals establish committees at every facility to outline staffing plans by division, including a minimum one-to-two nurse-to-patient ratio in critical care units, as strains on the healthcare system became amplified during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You can’t divorce this from the experience of COVID in New York. COVID tested our healthcare system and tested nurses in particular. They last went on strike in 2023 and continue to face chronic understaffing, leaving them feeling overextended,” Lindsey Boylan, a community activist at the picket line on Monday morning, told Al Jazeera.
In 2023, after a three-day strike, nurses successfully pushed hospital systems, through arbitration, to enforce those standards across all hospital units.
The union alleges that hospitals are walking back the standards and that hospital management has failed to agree to requests to strengthen protections for workers amid a rise in workplace violence. Union representatives told Al Jazeera that the requests include installing metal detectors at hospital entrances.
The strike comes amid heightened concerns about hospital safety following an active shooter incident at a Mount Sinai hospital in November and a fatal shooting at a NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Brooklyn last week.
Mount Sinai has also allegedly disciplined nurses who raised concerns about alleged union-busting, resulting in a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board in October.
Al Jazeera reached out to NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospitals for comment.
“We’re ready to keep negotiating a fair and reasonable contract that reflects our respect for our nurses and the critical role they play, and also recognises the challenging realities of today’s healthcare environment. We have proposed significant wage increases that keep our nurses among the highest paid in the city,” a spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital told Al Jazeera in a statement.
When pressed for specifics, the hospital did not respond. The union told Al Jazeera the hospital offered nurses $4,500 in single lump-sum payments that could be used towards healthcare benefits, staffing, or wages.
Representatives for Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore did not reply to requests for comment.
Unified nurses
“The fact that the people who provide healthcare need to be asking for healthcare is ironic and infuriating,” Alex Bores, a state assembly member and congressional candidate in New York’s 12th district, told Al Jazeera. Bores was at the picket line in the early hours of Monday.
“The energy was incredible. It was 6am and still dark, but people were marching and chanting. Everyone was energised and ready for the fight. There was no hesitation and no fear. It was clear the nurses were unified and prepared to go the distance,” Bores added.
The strike comes at the height of a severe flu season in New York, with hospitalisations reaching record highs. During the week of December 20, nearly 9 percent of emergency room visits were for the flu. Rates have since begun to decline, according to city health data.
“This [the severe flu season] leads to an increase in the number of people who need to be seen in emergency rooms and hospitals. As a result, staffing needs are actually higher, making this a particularly difficult time to not have all healthcare professionals available,” said Bruce Y Lee, a professor of health policy and management at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy.
For the week of January 3, the most recent data available, flu cases fell to 5 percent of emergency department diagnoses.
Healthcare demands may give nurses added leverage in negotiations.
“I think there’s a lot of leverage at this time. New Yorkers understand the role nurses played during COVID and beyond, and with a very difficult flu season now under way, we are all aware of how important nurses are, and how overextended they are,” Boylan added.
The political test
The strike poses a major political test at both the city and state levels. Governor Kathy Hochul is up for re-election, and pro-labour Zohran Mamdani’s recent mayoral win in New York City has increased pressure on the governor to side with progressives across the state.
“My top priority is protecting patients and ensuring they can access the care they need. At the same time, we must reach an agreement that recognises the essential work nurses do every day on the front lines of our healthcare system,” Hochul said in a statement on Sunday night.
Representatives for the governor did not respond to requests for additional comment after nurses officially began striking.
The strike comes early in Mamdani’s administration and marks a significant political test for the city’s new mayor, who has historically been pro-labour.
“There were so many people, it was flooding both sides of the street,” Boylan added.
In response to a request to the mayor’s office for comment, senior spokesperson Dora Pekec referred Al Jazeera to a post that Mamdani published on X on Sunday evening, ahead of 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. Our nurses kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable,” Mamdani wrote.
On Monday, the mayor joined picketers outside a hospital in Manhattan.
“This strike is not just a question of how much nurses earn per hour or what health benefits they receive, although both of those issues matter deeply. It is also a question of who deserves to benefit from this system,” Mamdani said at a news conference.
The spokesperson did not respond to our request for further comment.
