Nurses Dig In Against New York’s Hospital Giants
January 23, 2026
With nearly 15,000 nurses on strike, New York’s largest hospital systems are trying to roll back staffing rules and hard-earned benefits, even as executive salaries soar.
Striking nurses listen to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on the picket line at Mount Sinai West on January 20, 2026 in New York.
(Selçuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Nearly 15,000 nurses are in their second week of the largest nursing strike in New York City history, demanding that three of the city’s largest hospitals preserve health benefits, safe staffing ratios and workplace safety protections.
Nurses represented by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), a union representing more than 42,000 nurses statewide, protested on January 12 after sending notices to hospitals at Mount Sinai, Montefiore Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
NYSNA nurses who work at these hospitals have been without a contract since Dec. 31, after their demands were not met during negotiations that began in September 2025. The nurses say the hospitals have obstructed negotiations on key issues such as health benefits and safer staffing ratios.
Even Thursday, after 11 days of strike, the two parties remained far apart in the negotiations. The strike comes as President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” threatens to significantly cut funding for Medicaid and federal health care funding in New York.
Current number
Divya Viswanathan, a 27-year-old registered nurse who works in the infant cardiac intensive care unit at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at New York-Presbyterian, outlined the nurses’ demands. “We demand fair pay, safe staffing ratios, safety from workplace violence and coverage through our insurance,” Viswanathan said. “We negotiated for months before going on strike.”
Emma Cano, 27, who also works at New York Presbyterian Hospital on the pediatric medical surgery floor, said she was showing up to the picket line to demand safe staffing ratios, demanding specific ratios of registered nurses per patient, as has been written into laws in states like California. Cano cares for up to four patients (including transplant patients) during her shift on her floor, but says it should ideally be three or fewer. She said: “It takes a lot of emotional toll to be able to show up for that patient when you have three, four other patients who also really need you. »
Nurses at the other two hospitals – Mount Sinai and Montefiore – went on strike for three days in 2023 and negotiated a contract with enforceable staffing ratios. The contract allowed independent arbiters to impose financial penalties when hospitals fail to meet staffing ratios. In nine separate decisions issued in 2024, arbitrators found that Mount Sinai violated those ratios and awarded the nurses approximately $4.7 million in financial penalties, NYSNA said.
“Hospitals want to return to the personnel control mechanisms we won in our strike three years ago,” a NYSNA official said. “They also don’t want to hire more nurses or improve staffing standards in chronically understaffed units. »
Health benefits are another central issue in the negotiations, nurses say. At all three hospitals, nurses’ health insurance premiums are currently covered, but the hospitals now want nurses to start covering the costs themselves. Cano said: “We will have to pay for it out of pocket, because the hospitals are offering not to pay for it anymore. »
NYSNA officials said about 44,000 people — nurses and their families at the three hospitals enrolled in the union’s health plan — could be affected by the health care cuts.
The nation asked the three hospitals to answer questions about staffing proposals and health care benefits. A spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian said it had “proposed to maintain our nurses’ current employer-funded benefits.” The hospital also said the union’s overall contract demands are unrealistic given “drastic federal cuts to the Medicaid and ACA markets.” Mount Sinai said in a statement that there had been no discussions about reducing or discontinuing health care benefits and accused the union of “misrepresenting” negotiations.
NYSNA officials disputed the two hospitals’ claims, saying NewYork-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai threatened to discontinue or significantly reduce nurses’ health benefits and rejected the union’s proposals to maintain current coverage.
A Montefiore spokesperson said health care “is not on the negotiating table.” In a December memo, the hospital’s chief nursing officer told nurses that “your current health care coverage will remain exactly as it is.” Montefiore offers free health insurance with no premiums or deductibles.
However, the hospital has restricted striking nurses’ access to its pharmacy, preventing them from picking up their prescription medications since the strike began. NYSNA filed an unfair labor practice complaint over the matter.
Popular
“Swipe left below to see more authors”Swipe →
Nurses are also demanding better workplace safety protections. They want behavioral intervention teams including psychiatric nurses and social workers to defuse violent situations. Mount Sinai experienced an active shooter incident in November, and New York Presbyterian Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn experienced a violent incident shortly before the strike began.
A NYSNA news release says hospital executives have dramatically increased their own compensation while threatening nurses’ benefits. Total CEO compensation at the three hospitals increased by more than 54% between 2020 and 2023, based on 990 tax filings. In 2024 alone, NewYork-Presbyterian CEO Steve Corwin received $26.3 million in total compensation, while Montefiore CEO Dr. Philip Ozuah received approximately $16.3 million in compensation.
NYSNA officials also estimate that, based on an average nursing workload, Mount Sinai is spending at least $10 million per week to pay the 1,400 travel nurses they reportedly hired before the strike began. According to Bloomberg Newshospitals collectively spent more than $100 million on temporary traveling nurses to maintain operations during the strike, paying some replacement workers more than $9,000 per week.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took to the picket line Tuesday, criticized the disparity. “These executives have no difficulty making ends meet,” Mamdani said. “But too many nurses can’t make ends meet.”
The nurses also received support from other unions on the picket line, including the Fire Department, the Central Labor Council, 1199 SEIU (which represents health care workers), PSC-CUNY (which represents faculty and staff at the City University of New York), and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. On Tuesday, taxi drivers drove past the picket line honking their horns in support of the striking nurses.
Gustavo Ajche, leader of Los Deliveristas Unidos, a delivery group, said he saw the nurses’ fight as linked to his own. “We see them as colleagues who demand fair wages,” Ajche said. “Nurses are the ones doing the work in hospitals, and we see this as no different from the painstaking work delivery workers do for low wages. We wholeheartedly support the nurses’ strike,” he said.
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said the impact of the strike extended beyond New York. “Nurses across the country are facing the same issues that striking New York City nurses are fighting: chronic understaffing that puts our patients at risk, increasing workplace violence, and greedy employers who are willing to skimp on the safety of nurses and patients,” Hagans said. “When nurses come together and fight, we win. »
More than The nation
Zohran Mamdani has pledged to govern at the same pace as New Yorkers live — but city politics is largely designed to thwart that ambition.
DD Guttenplan
New York City is suing a wage theft delivery app, showing that under Mamdani, gig companies can no longer break the law with impunity.
Prajwal Bhat
When a group of workers is terrorized or disappears, it threatens the ability of all workers to fight for their labor rights.
Sarah Lazarus
