More than 50 nurses delivered a petition to New York State Nurses Association headquarters Wednesday demanding a formal disciplinary investigation into top union leadership over members’ assertions that leaders are forcing a vote on a tentative agreement with NewYork-Presbyterian that rank-and-file representatives already rejected at the bargaining table.
It was not immediately clear what mechanism the union has to investigate the actions of its two top executives, Nancy Hagans, the NYSNA president, and Pat Kane, its executive director. Nurses also demanded that the findings of the probe be subject to a full hearing open to all of its members.
The spontaneous action was organized hours after NYSNA and NewYork-Presbyterian announced an agreement Tuesday night to end its strike. More than 1,500 nurses signed the petition the group delivered to union leadership, according to the organizers.
NYSNA’s decision to forge ahead with a vote at NewYork-Presbyterian infuriated members who said they stand by their executive committee’s assertion that the deal does not meet their needs. NYSNA has executive committees at each of its hospitals; those committees are made up of union members who participate in contract negotiations.
Striking Presbyterian nurses bargaining committee leader Beth Loudin addresses dozens of colleagues outside NYSNA headquarters in Midtown after delivering a letter to union leaders expressing their displeasure with a potential contract agreement, Feb. 11, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Beth Loudin, a neonatal nurse and member of the executive committee at NewYork-Presbyterian, said top union leadership informed her it was moving ahead with a vote yesterday afternoon — days after she and the committee rejected it.
“I can’t even call it a memorandum of agreement, because there’s no signature on it,” said Loudin. “This is a rush job to get a vote out, because it’s in alignment with the other hospitals. It was very jarring.”
The three-year agreement is pending ratification by the union’s 4,200 rank-and-file members, who have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to approve or reject the deal. The tentative agreement includes the same 12% salary increases that the union secured in earlier deals with Mount Sinai and Montefiore, but it does not guarantee nurse-to-patient ratio enforcement language available to nurses at those hospitals.
Nurses at the three hospital systems have been on strike since Jan. 12 trying to secure stronger nurse-to-patient ratios, claiming that staffing shortages put their and their patients’ wellbeing at risk. They will return to work no later than Feb. 14 if the contract is approved. If the ratification vote fails at any of the hospitals, only those nurses will return to the picket line.
On Tuesday Kane, the union’s executive director, addressed the controversy at NewYork-Presbyterian in a video to members that was included in an email with the ballot, first obtained by Gothamist: “The simple fact is that we’ve reached the end of negotiations.”
NewYork-Presbyterian nurse educator Cagatay Chelik joined a Midtown protest against a contract deal NYSNA leaders agreed too without their knowledge, Feb. 11, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“They are overriding our voices,” said NewYork-Presbyterian nurse educator Cagatay Chelik. He said he does not have faith that the ratification results, which are being tabulated on the platform SurveyMonkey, will be accurate.
Nurses marched from Macy’s on 34th Street to the union’s headquarters a block south on West 33rd to deliver the petition on Wednesday, chanting “We are your nurses! Listen to your nurses!”
Asked for comment on the union members’ petition and protest, a NYSNA spokesperson referred THE CITY to an earlier statement by Hagans, the union’s president, where she urged her members not to rush to judgement.
“We believe all striking nurses deserve to see the details of their tentative agreements and get the opportunity to vote on whether to ratify a new contract,” said Hagans. “As a democratic, member-led union that responds to its members, we are moving forward with a vote on tentative contracts at all four hospitals with the goal of returning all nurses to work as soon as possible.”
Loudin and about a half dozen other union colleagues became visibly emotional as they delivered the signed petition to NYSNA’s general counsel and contract specialists who were summoned to the lobby to meet with the protesting nurses. Hagans and Kane did not meet with the nurses.
“It’s been truly painful personally that my union decided to go against my leadership and my nurses,” Loudin told the union’s contract specialists. “We’ve been fighting for this for six months.”
Striking nurse rally outside NYSNA union headquarters against a contract deal reached with management of Presbyterian hospitals, Feb. 11, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Nurses who spoke with THE CITY said they felt betrayed by their top leaders.
“Unfortunately now we’re at a point in which our union’s senior leadership, specifically our executive director and the president, have sold us out to management,” said Esteban Barrena, a nurse at NYP-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
Together with earlier tentative agreements at Mount Sinai and Montefiore, the pact at NewYork-Presbyterian, if ratified, will mark the end of the longest and largest strike of its kind in New York City history.
The union touted the tentative agreement at NewYork-Presbyterian as a victory for nurses, securing commitments to preserve the union’s healthcare and benefits and to hire more staff in order to improve nurse-to-patient ratios.
The union’s executive committee had rejected the deal because the staffing proposals that the mediator had recommended would not guarantee job security for existing nurses, Loudin said. It also does not include the same staffing ratio enforcement language that nurses at Mount Sinai and Montefiore have had in their contracts since 2023, which the union has touted as some of the most secure in the country.
“This is the reason we’ve been fighting for all of this,” added Barrena. “Why would union leadership compromise on that?”
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