Thousands of nurses go on strike at several major New York City hospitals

NEW YORK: Thousands of nurses in New York City went on strike Monday after negotiations through the weekend yielded no breakthroughs in disputes with three major hospital systems over staffing, benefits and other issues.
“Nurses on strike! … Fair contract now!” nurses shouted on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s campus in Upper Manhattan. Others picketed at hospitals in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems, where a 2023 nursing strike fed off pandemic-era frustrations and led to a deal to boost staffing and pay.
“And now, 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,” emergency department nurse Tristan Castillo said Monday outside Mount Sinai West.
About 15,000 nurses are involved in the strike, according to their union, the New York State Nurses Association. The hospitals remained open, hiring droves of temporary nurses to try to fill the labor gap.
The strike involves private, nonprofit hospitals, not city-run ones. But the walkout, which the union casts as lifesaving essential workers fighting hospital executives who make millions of dollars a year, could be a significant early test of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new administration.
The democratic socialist campaigned on a pro-worker platform and struck a similar note while visiting nurses on the NewYork-Presbyterian picket line Monday.
“These executives are not having difficulty making ends meet,” said Mamdani, who extolled nurses’ work and said they were seeking “dignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve. They should settle for nothing less.”
Some other Democratic city and state politicians also visited striking nurses, while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul sent state health officials to the hospitals to keep watch over patient care. She called in a statement for the sides to negotiate a deal that “recognizes the essential work nurses do.”
The strike, which comes during a severe flu season, could potentially force the hospitals to transfer patients, cancel procedures or divert ambulances, though the medical centers insisted they were prepared and committed to meet patients’ needs. The walkout could also put a strain on other city hospitals if patients avoid the medical centers hit by the strike.