{"id":97910,"date":"2026-01-12T22:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/97910\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T22:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:37:13","slug":"thousands-of-nurses-go-on-strike-at-major-new-york-city-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/97910\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of nurses go on strike at major New York City hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Thousands of nurses in New York City went on strike Monday after\u00a0negotiations through the weekend<\/a>\u00a0yielded no breakthroughs in disputes with three major hospital systems over staffing, benefits and other issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cNurses on strike! … Fair contract now!\u201d nurses shouted on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital\u2019s campus in Upper Manhattan. Others picketed at hospitals in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems, where a\u00a02023 nursing strike<\/a>\u00a0fed off pandemic-era frustrations and led to a\u00a0deal to boost staffing and pay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now, it\u2019s how they\u2019re treating us: They don\u2019t want to give us a fair contract, and they don\u2019t want to give us safe staffing, and now they\u2019re trying to roll back on our benefits,\u201d emergency department nurse Tristan Castillo said Monday outside Mount Sinai West.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s new administration.<\/p>\n

The democratic socialist campaigned on a pro-worker platform and struck a similar note while visiting nurses on the NewYork-Presbyterian picket line Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese executives are not having difficulty making ends meet,\u201d said Mamdani, who extolled nurses\u2019 work and said they were seeking \u201cdignity, respect and the fair pay and treatment that they deserve. They should settle for nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201crecognizes the essential work nurses do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike, which comes during\u00a0a severe flu season<\/a>, 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\u2019 needs. The walkout could also put a strain on other city hospitals if patients avoid the medical centers hit by the strike.<\/p>\n

The nurses\u2019 demands vary by hospital, but staffing levels are a top issue. The union says hospitals have given nurses unmanageable workloads.<\/p>\n

Nurses also want better security measures in the workplace, citing incidents such as an episode last week when a man with a sharp object\u00a0barricaded himself in a Brooklyn hospital room<\/a>\u00a0and was then killed by police.<\/p>\n

The union also wants limitations on hospitals\u2019 use of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

The hospitals say that they\u2019ve improved staffing in recent years and that the union\u2019s demands overall are too costly.<\/p>\n

Mount Sinai said the union was making \u201cextreme economic demands.\u201d Montefiore spokesperson Joe Solmonese said the union was pressing \u201d$3.6 billion in reckless demands,\u201d including exorbitant raises.<\/p>\n

The union didn\u2019t immediately respond to a question about its salary proposal and current wage levels. According to the hospitals, unionized registered nurses now average $165,000 a year at Montefiore, $162,000 at Mount Sinai, and $163,000 at NewYork-Presbyterian\u2019s Columbia University Irving Medical Center; none of the numbers includes benefits.<\/p>\n

Montefiore says the union\u2019s asks would raise the average to $220,000 in three years. Mount Sinai says the average there would hit $275,000.<\/p>\n

After the nurses gave notice Jan. 2 of the looming strike, the hospitals vowed to \u201cdo whatever is necessary to minimize disruptions\u201d and said they were prepared to deliver care no matter how long the strike lasts. Mount Sinai said in a statement Monday it had lined up 1,400 temporary nurses.<\/p>\n

New York-Presbyterian accused the union of staging a strike to \u201ccreate disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ready to keep negotiating a fair and reasonable contract that reflects our respect for our nurses and the critical role they play, and also recognizes the challenging realities of today\u2019s healthcare environment,\u201d the hospital said.<\/p>\n

Each medical center is negotiating with the union independently. Several other private hospitals in and near New York City reached deals in recent days to avert a possible strike.<\/p>\n

The three-day\u00a0strike in 2023<\/a>\u00a0resulted in a deal raising pay 19% over three years at Mount Sinai and Montefiore. The pact also included staffing improvements, though the union and hospitals now disagree about how much progress has been made, or whether the hospitals are retreating from staffing guarantees.<\/p>\n

The sides also dispute whether the hospitals are trying to reduce health benefits. Mount Sinai, for instance, says its proposals would cut costs without changing coverage.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Thousands of nurses in New York City went on strike Monday after\u00a0negotiations through the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1948,9,24,55,54,23187,56,15254],"class_list":{"0":"post-97910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-hospitals","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-nurses","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-strike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}