Nearly 15K NYC nurses begin strike at hospitals in Manhattan, the Bronx

Nearly 15,000 nurses are walking off the job at hospitals across Manhattan and the Bronx on Monday morning after contract talks with hospitals faltered over the weekend.

The New York State Nurses Association, making good on strike threats announced weeks ago, sent the first picket lines up before 6 a.m. outside the affected medical centers, which are operated by Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai Health System and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Harlem early Monday, striking nurses bundled up against the cold chanted "the nurses united will never be defeated" as they cheered on each other.

“I was on strike three years ago, and it sucks to be back outside, having to fight for health care, having to fight to protect my patients, having to fight to be protected myself,” said Donovan Carey, an emergency-room nurse at the hospital. He said “safe staffing” levels were needed to protect patients, and nurses are demanding metal detectors at each entrance to the hospital to help prevent shootings.

“Hospitals are to be places of healing, not of fear,” Carey said, noting nurses are also pressing for clearer policies around federal immigration agents’ access to hospitals.

NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said ahead of the walkout that nurses preferred to continue providing patient care, “but our bosses have given nurses no other option but to strike.”

Representatives of the affected hospital systems said they were prepared to continue serving the public during the job action, which had long been threatened. A spokesperson for Montefiore said on Sunday that he anticipated this strike could last weeks. And Dr. Brendan Carr, CEO of Mount Sinai Health System, shared a similarly bleak outlook in a memo to employees Sunday afternoon.

“The planning and personnel costs required to responsibly run our hospitals for what we anticipate could be a long strike are substantial, but we are prepared to maintain these operations,” Carr said.

The work stoppage, which the union said would be the largest by nurses in city history, comes as hospitals are anticipating significant financial losses as a result of federal cuts to Medicaid and other health care funding. The nurses’ prior agreements expired Dec. 31.

The last nurses’ strike in New York City was in 2023, after nurses had been hailed as heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic. It lasted three days before nurses won significant salary boosts and new staffing guarantees. This time, nurses say they are fighting to protect those gains and address other issues like workplace violence.

Brian Austin, an emergency department nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian, said Monday that he was excited to advocate for more staffing, workplace safety and support for nurses who are “underpaid and overworked.” He said he and his fellow nurses are often caring for 14 or 15 people at a time.

“It’s kind of impossible to see everybody and make sure everybody gets the same level of care,” Austin said.

Representatives of Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian say NYSNA’s proposed salary and benefit packages will drive up hospital costs by billions of dollars in the coming years as they face down these financial pressures.

But union leaders argued that less well-financed hospitals have already managed to settle negotiations with the union.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined the striking nurses at a press conference Monday morning, with a red union scarf draped around his shoulders. He said city officials are “working tirelessly” to ensure sick New Yorkers get high-quality care while nurses are on strike. He urged hospital management to bargain in good faith and reach a deal that “allows the nurses that work in this city to live in this city.”

“There is no shortage of wealth in the healthcare industry, especially so at the three privately operated hospital groups at which nurses are striking,” Mamdani said.

“The hospital executives who run these hospitals, the ones where these hardworking nurses are asking for what they deserve, these executives are not having difficulty making ends meet,” the mayor added, then listed out their multi-million-dollar salaries, prompting boos from the crowd.

The nurses association said on Sunday it was still negotiating over wages with the three medical centers but were also prioritizing demands related to workplace safety. It cited recent violent incidents at hospitals, as well as health benefits and staffing standards.

Carr said in Sunday’s memo that the cost of hiring outside nurses and making other contingency plans for the strike was eating into Mount Sinai’s budget for meeting unionized nurses’ demands.

He added that despite ongoing negotiations “the list of items left to resolve is long.”

The nurses association has countered in recent days that hospitals could have used their budgets to meet the union’s demands ahead of the planned strike, rather than spending money on strike preparations. Attorney General Letitia James echoed that sentiment at the Monday morning press conference.

“If these hospitals have money to hire scabs, then they’ve got money and resources to address the needs of these nurses,” she said.

Carr said that in addition to recruiting temporary workers, Mount Sinai has also been making other adjustments to prepare for the strike that could affect patient care. He said the health system has been working to identify patients who could be safely discharged, transferring patients between Mount Sinai facilities based on their capacity and rescheduling appointments and operations as needed.

Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order Friday because of the strike, declaring a disaster emergency that allows doctors and nurses from other states and Canada to practice in New York.

Hochul urged nurses and hospital management to work to reach an agreement to avoid a strike, which she said could put New Yorkers’ lives in jeopardy.

But on Sunday evening, the governor conceded a strike was likely and said the state Department of Health would have staff at all affected hospitals for the strike‘s duration “to ensure patient safety and continuity of care.”

Ahead of the walkout, Hagans invited patients to join the nurses.

“Patients are welcome to join us [on the picket line] after they get taken care of,” Hagans said.

Here’s what else to know

Walkouts at Mount Sinai locations started before 6 a.m. and at hospitals operated by NewYork-Presbyterian and Montefiore Medical Center at 7 a.m.

Strike Locations:

• Mount Sinai Hospital, Morningside and West;
• NewYork-Presbyterian’s Allen Hospital, Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center;
• Montefiore Medical Center’s Jack D. Weiler Hospital, Henry and Lucy Moses campus, Hutchinson campus and the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore

Emergency Management said ahead of the strike it would work with hospitals to coordinate patient transfers and reroute ambulances as needed.

Anthony Almojera, a paramedic and lieutenant with FDNY EMS, said he’s expecting ambulances to spend a longer time dropping off patients at emergency departments, because nurses are normally the ones who triage patients before they go into the hospital. If people who are less familiar with that system are in charge, he said, the process could take longer and ambulances could be delayed before responding to the next emergency call. “It’s a domino effect,” he said.

Almojera said a program that deploys EMS at hospitals to help with triage has increased staffing at non-striking city hospitals in case they need to take in additional patients during the work stoppage.Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order Friday because of the strike, declaring a disaster emergency that allows doctors and nurses from other states and Canada to practice in New York.

This is a breaking news story and has been updated with additional information.

Samantha Max contributed reporting.