The strike, which began Jan. 12, has stalled in negotiations. The union is seeking a 25% salary increase over three years, while hospital administrators say the demand is unreasonable.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders rallied with striking nurses Tuesday at Mount Sinai West on the Upper West Side, calling on hospital executives to return to the negotiating table. The rally came during the ninth day of the largest nursing strike the city has seen in decades, involving approximately 15,000 nurses across three hospital systems: Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian. The strike began Jan. 12.
Political support for the walkout
Speaking to a boisterous crowd of nurses in front of the hospital, Sanders said: “The people of this country are sick and tired of the greed in this health care industry.” The Vermont senator, a Brooklyn native, highlighted the multimillion-dollar salaries of the chief executives at the three affected hospital systems.
Mamdani added: “Now is your time of need, when we can assure that this is a city you don’t just work in, but a city you can also live in.”
Outside Mount Sinai West, nurses and their supporters marched in frigid cold, chanting “one day longer, one day stronger” as a caravan of New York City taxi drivers honked their horns in support.
Stalled negotiations
The New York State Nurses Association said it has held one bargaining session with each of the three hospital systems since the strike began. Those hours-long meetings have ended with little progress, and there are no plans this week to resume talks.
Jonathan Hunter, a registered nurse at Mount Sinai and member of the union’s negotiating team, said: “They offered us nothing. It was all performative.”
The union is proposing pay raises that amount to a 25% salary increase over three years. Hospital administrators said the union’s demands ignore the economic realities of healthcare in New York City and the country, citing federal cuts to Medicaid and rising overall costs.
“NYSNA’s demands ignore the economic realities of healthcare in New York City and the country,” NewYork-Presbyterian said in a statement Tuesday.
The hospitals maintain that their nurses are already among the highest paid in the city. They also say they have proposed maintaining current employer-funded benefits, which they contend exceed what most private employees receive.
The union disputes the hospitals’ characterization, saying the hospitals are seeking to reduce nurse benefits.
Operational status and worker concerns
Hospital administrators said their medical operations are running normally despite the walkout. They have brought on thousands of temporary nurses and said they have made financial commitments to extend their employment.
“Everyone who has come to work — including many who have gone above and beyond to support the operational response — is helping to save lives,” Brendan Carr, Mount Sinai’s chief executive, said in a statement to staff Monday.
Nicole Rodriguez, a nurse at Mount Sinai West, said her biggest concern in the contract dispute is preserving her health care benefits. She has an autoimmune disease that causes her to get sick often and pass along illnesses to her child.
“If my son is not well, I’m not well, and I can’t be at the bedside and be the nurse I want to be,” she said. “I hope management opens their eyes to how much support we have out here, and they see that they need to reach into their pockets and give the nurses their health care.”