A week after the start of what is likely the largest nurses strike in NYC history, negotiations collapsed again, halting a glimmer of hope for an end to the walkout sparked by last week’s bargaining talks.
On Thursday and Friday, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the union representing the nearly 15,000 striking nurses, met with NewYork-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Morningside and West, two of the three hospitals involved in the strike, in addition to Montefiore, to negotiate their demands with management.
But the talks stalled yet again, putting the nurses back on the picket line throughout the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend, as management returned to their offices.
The nurses said they made “significant revisions” to their proposals at the bargaining table, but their bosses offered “nothing” in return.
“What we are demanding, we believe, is essential to providing care to New Yorkers,” NYSNA said in a statement. “It seems hospitals are furious about the safe staffing standards that nurses won three years ago and are willing to do anything to claw them back. What will it take for the city’s wealthiest hospitals to start listening to nurses, patients, and the public?
Hospital management at both NewYork Prebyterian and Mount Sinai hospitals called the nurses’ demands “unreasonable.”
“The union’s proposals remain unreasonable,” NewYork-Presbyterian said in a statement. “While we continue to be far apart, we are committed to bargaining in good faith. Future meetings will be scheduled through the mediator.”
According to NewYork-Presbyterian, its nurses are among the highest paid in the city, with an average annual compensation of $163,000, and an average total comp of approximately $233,000 including fringe benefits. Hospital executives said the nurses have asked for an approximate 25% wage increase, which they said would amount to a more than $2 billion incremental increase over the next three years.
At Mount Sinai, the union put on the table a raise in average nurse pay to nearly $250,000 before factoring in benefits, a hospital spokesperson said.
The nurses, meanwhile, called out the “unreasonable” salaries of executives in charge of the hospital systems.
“What we believe is unreasonable is paying your CEOs $26.3 million, we’re looking at you, Steve Corwin, or doubling your CEO compensation,” NYSNA said in a statement. “Montefiore’s CEO De. Ozuah doubled his between 2020 to 2023, taking his pay to $16.7 in 2024, while refusing to safely staff.”
AOC support on the picket lines
Local politicians and unions have come out in full force to support the picketing nurses outside their respective hospitals.
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, gave her support to the nurses at Montefiore in the Bronx on Friday. She also zeroed in on hospital safety.
“These hospitals, in an attempt to make more money, don’t want to hire nurses at a safe patient-to-nurse staffing ratio,” the Congress members said. And they also aren’t implementing a very important standard to also make sure nurses are safe in the hospitals, as well.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Attorney General Letitia James, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and a slate of unions gave their support to the nurses since the strike began on Jan. 12.
Meanwhile, all three hospitals, including their emergency departments, are open and providing care with support from temp nurses and the NYS Department of Health.
Both the nurses and hospitals urge New Yorkers to go to the hospital if they need care.
