New York City Nurses Win Largest Nurse Strike in City History

On Feb. 26, the last striking New York City nurses walked back into the hospital for the first time in 41 days. The largest and longest nurse strike in New York City history officially ended with hugs, tears, cheers and reunions.

Anatomy of the Strike

The road to win fair contracts for all 20,000 New York City private sector nurses, including all 15,000 striking nurses, was long. Three years ago, NYSNA nurses at the same 12 hospitals — from the large, rich academic medical centers to the small, struggling safety net hospitals — came together for the first time to win groundbreaking contracts that lifted up all nurses and set a new standard for enforceable safe staffing standards and wages in New York City and beyond. That contract campaign involved a three-day strike at Montefiore and Mount Sinai that delivered precedent-setting staffing enforcement language that has benefited NYSNA nurses around the state.

This time around, the richest hospitals were ready for us. Not only did they hoard cash to fight against their own nurses, they bragged about having weeks and months of reserves to fight us. Before the strike began, the president of the Greater New York Hospital Association told reporters that these hospitals already spent $100 million on expensive replacement nurses and were ready to spend more. These bosses launched vicious public relations (PR) and union-busting campaigns.

At the bargaining table, the richest hospitals moved the least. They dragged their feet on nurses’ contract priorities, threatened to discontinue or drastically cut our health benefits, asked for givebacks on safe staffing and refused to propose percentage-based wage increases.

Mount Sinai West nurse and NYSNA Director at Large Denash Forbes, RN, MSN, said: “Nurses at Sinai West had not gone on strike for decades, and we were hoping we wouldn’t have to go on strike this year, but hospital administration gave us no option. They refused to budge on even small noneconomic items and they hit us with the bombshell that they wouldn’t continue our health benefits.”

Safety Net Hospital Nurses Reach the First Agreements

Meanwhile, nurses at the eight safety net hospitals were making slow but steady progress at the table. Those hospital executives let members know they couldn’t afford — and didn’t want a strike. Just days before the strike deadline, safety net hospital nurses at BronxCare, Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Maimonides Medical Center, One Brooklyn Health Interfaith Medical Center and One Brooklyn Health Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, Richmond University Medical Center, The Brooklyn Hospital Center and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center were able to win strong language to protect nurses from workplace violence, protect nursing practice from artificial intelligence (AI), and protect immigrant and trans patients and nurses. Those bosses agreed to fully fund NYSNA Plan A benefits without having the new health insurance rates and to pay an average of whatever wage increase nurses at the wealthy academic hospitals won.

Eileen Fitzgerald, RN, and Richmond University Medical Center Executive Committee Vice President said: “We knew nurses at the wealthy hospitals could win better pay increases than we could at our struggling hospital. But we were so proud to win make-whole staffing remedies, new workplace violence protections and other common priorities that the other hospitals could build on.”

Escalating to Win

The tentative agreements that safety net hospital nurses won did not come easy. Twenty thousand New York City NYSNA members had been escalating their campaign to build public awareness since August. Nurses at all 12 hospitals voted overwhelmingly — 97% — to authorize a strike, letting employers know they would strike starting Jan. 12 if hospitals failed to negotiate fair contracts.

After dropping strike notices, nurses began bargaining daily as the deadline loomed. Safety net nurses broke through on Jan. 6, reaching tentative agreements on major issues and a commitment from employers to continue health benefits. Two days later, four of those hospitals reached full tentative agreements, and all but BronxCare nurses rescinded their strike notices.

The richest hospitals continued stalling. On Jan. 9, NYSNA nurses marched and rallied outside the League of Voluntary Hospitals, the trade group for New York City’s private hospitals. Unions added their support, sending an open letter from 45 unions calling on the remaining hospitals to settle fair contracts and avoid a strike. Despite the pressure, hospital executives delayed, held health benefits hostage and still asked for givebacks — pushing 15,000 nurses out on strike.

Nurses on Strike

Before the sun had even risen on Jan. 12, nurses at Montefiore, Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, and NewYork-Presbyterian streamed out of their hospitals, holding signs; packing the sidewalks in front and around the sides of their hospital buildings; and filling the morning air with chanting, music and horns. The strike was on.

For the next few weeks, nurses showed up and spoke out for patient and nurse safety and fair contracts. Hospital executives refused to return to the bargaining table until a week into the strike, instead escalating their PR campaign against NYSNA nurses. When they finally returned to the table, the bosses barely budged. Despite the coldest winter in a generation and hospital executives’ disrespect, NYSNA nurses held the line.

Members received tremendous support daily from labor, community and elected allies as well as patients, other union members and everyday New Yorkers. Thousands of supporters came to the strike line, donated generously to the NYSNA Strike Hardship Fund and expressed their solidarity on social media.

NYSNA members at all of the hospitals spoke out at a dozen press conferences with powerful supporters, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Senator Bernie Sanders and Attorney General Letitia James; dozens of Congress members, state legislators and City Council members; and key labor and community allies. Nurses did creative actions on the picket line, including hosting a candlelight vigil with the parents of pediatric patients; holding a family day of community service on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; and holding a fun run between picket lines.

Nurses also took the action from the picket line directly to the door of greedy hospital executives’ homes and businesses. On Jan. 29, they participated in a vigil to honor Minnesota nurse Alex Pretti, RN, whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents killed. The crowd of more than 1,000 protesters joined NYSNA’s call to keep ICE out of hospitals. On Feb. 5, nurses returned to the League of Voluntary Hospitals and engaged in civil disobedience to demonstrate the lengths they are willing to go to protect patient and nurse safety. Contract Action Teams at all four hospitals organized rolling actions to engage members and keep the pressure on hospital executives and elected officials. Actions included a march across Brooklyn Bridge, a march to Times Square and a march to Governor Kathy Hochul’s New York City office.

The nurses’ strike was omnipresent in local and national media, earning more than 3,500 press hits and bringing greater public awareness to safe staffing, workplace violence, the threat of AI in healthcare, attacks on our most vulnerable patients, the importance of good health benefits to frontline nurses and hospital greed.

While nurses waged a campaign outside, we continued to fight for fair contracts at the bargaining table. Nurses agreed to return to four separate tables under one roof to expedite negotiations on Jan. 22. Although the bosses signaled they would immediately commit to continue our health benefits and finally put forward a straight-forward wage offer, it took days of negotiation and calling an emergency press conference to get them to follow through.

After several more days working through mediators at the bargaining table, nurses at Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and Mount Sinai Morningside and West reached tentative agreements on Feb. 9 and returned to work on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian voted down the mediator’s proposal, continuing the strike. They ultimately headed back to the table and reached a tentative agreement on Feb. 20, returning to work on Feb. 25, ending the historic strike after 41 days.

Wins That Set a New Standard

Once again, NYSNA nurses tied their fate to one another in this contract campaign and worked in coordination to raise the standards for everyone. New York City nurses fought for and won contracts that:

• Achieve enforceable safe staffing standards with make-whole remedies in every hospital and increase the number of nurses to improve patient care at all hospitals.
• Protect their health benefits, with no additional costs to nurses.
• Protect nurses from workplace violence. Safety improvements include additional weapons detection systems at entrances, additional visitor screening, wearable panic alarms, steps toward implementing behavioral health rapid response teams, and additional paid time off to appear in court for nurses affected by workplace violence.
• Protect immigrant and trans patients and nurses, including clear guidelines for protecting patient care and interacting with ICE at Mount Sinai Morningside and West and Montefiore and new protections for trans workers at Mount Sinai Hospital.
• Safeguard against AI in all contracts for the first time.
• Increase salaries by more than 12% over the life of the three-year contract to recruit and retain nurses for safe patient care. Salaries will increase by approximately 4% in each year of the three-year contracts.
• Beat back aggressive takeaways on healthcare and safe staffing enforcement.
• Return all nurses to work after ratification.

More Challenges Ahead

Although nurses returned to work holding their heads high, there are more challenges ahead. The work of enforcing our contracts now begins. Many members had issues returning to work, including delays and retaliation, and NYSNA is taking hospital administration to mediation and arbitration to address these issues.

Nurses at The Brooklyn Hospital Center are locked in a battle with hospital executives over nonpayment of their benefits (read more on page 13). Maimonides Medical Center will soon merge with New York City Health+Hospitals to stabilize its finances. Overall, struggling safety net hospitals will face even greater financial strains as federal healthcare cuts take effect. NYSNA members and other healthcare advocates must continue advocating to increase funding for public and safety net hospitals to prevent hospital closures and protect access to care for low-income New Yorkers.

Nurses must also continue to hold hospitals accountable for how they use their resources to ensure that all hospitals, including safety net hospitals, are putting patients over profits — and over their outrageous executive pay. This contract campaign and strike showed us that it’s possible. We showed the power of nurses.