Ask any New Yorker how a nurse has touched our lives — most of us have a story.
In 2020, my father was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. His doctor was affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian, and I witnessed firsthand how nurses there balanced caring for patients and comforting family members fearing the worst, desperate for solutions and solace. So many times it was nurses I turned to for help. When I couldn’t understand what the doctor told me, it was the nurses who broke it down into simpler terms. When I received a bill for more than I made in a year, it was the nurses who walked me through how to submit claims to the insurance company. My father unfortunately passed away a few years later, but I am forever grateful for the care nurses gave my father and my family when we needed it the most. And my story is not unique. Nurses have been there for us in some of the City’s darkest days, and in all the smaller moments too, whether readying our kids for a check-up, stabilizing an asthma attack, or caring for a sick parent.
Now, nurses need our support. New York State Nurses Association members at NewYork-Presbyterian where my father received care, as well as at Mount Sinai and Montefiore, have been on strike since January 12, fighting for safe staffing and protections from workplace violence.
As the strike enters its fifth week, wealthy hospital CEOs continue to cry “think of the patients!” as they place blame at nurses’ feet. But nurses aren’t to blame; all they want is to deliver the highest standard of care. Patient safety is their biggest concern, as crowded hospital units stretch nurses to the limits of quality care. But so far, management has backtracked on safe staffing standards that save lives and ignored nurses’ demands for workplace violence protections. How can we expect nurses to keep us safe and healthy if they aren’t delivered those protections in return?
CEOs at these hospitals make about 120 times more than the average nurse, with salaries up to $26 million a year. That’s about $70,000 a day, or more than most New Yorkers make in an entire year. While NYC hospitals overall have raised prices for care by about 150% in the last decade, NewYork-Presbyterian has inflated prices by 187%; Montefiore by 166%, and Mount Sinai by 213%. Presbyterian is even under investigation for colluding with insurance companies to keep prices high, with their average hospital stay costing $170,000. All of this while they pay temporary replacement nurses as much as $10,000 per week. I think they can afford to hire enough nurses to provide safe patient care.
Greedy hospital executives can stop this strike tomorrow by simply bargaining in good faith and agreeing to the nurses’ proposals. But instead of delivering nurses the same care and compassion they give us every day, management is stalling, lowballing, and unionbusting, leaving nearly 15,000 workers to picket in the frigid cold.
It’s a snapshot of a larger struggle, not just in New York but across the country: corporate greed is tanking workers’ rights, wages, healthcare, and safety, and worsening our affordability crisis.
Healthcare is a great example. Wealthy private hospitals are jacking up prices, charging patients more than they need to, and piling up the profits. They cut corners on staffing and safety, too, to save an extra buck. Then, when nurses ask for reasonable improvements, executives scoff, claiming they can’t afford their own inflated prices. In reality, these hospitals have already earmarked their cash for rich executives, risky investments, and expansions, not for frontline nurses and their patients. New York City’s wealthy non-profit hospitals are following the same old corporate playbook that has worked every time: price gouge consumers, exploit workers, pocket the profits.
Well, not this time. New York is a union town, and New Yorkers stand with nurses. When me and the rest of the ALIGN team went to the strike line in solidarity, the energy was electric. We have to keep that energy high — keep showing up at the picket lines, and keep donating to the strike fund. We should also keep the pressure on these private hospital systems to put profits before patients, respect their workers’ rights and settle fair contracts that get hardworking New York nurses back to work.
We trust nurses with our lives and our families. We trust them to know what we need. They know what they need, too.
Moore is the Executive Director of worker justice organization ALIGN.
