January 23, 2026
As almost 15,000 nurses’ strike, New York’s greatest hospital programs are attempting to roll again hard-won staffing guidelines and well being advantages—at the same time as government pay soars.
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Striking nurses take heed to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on the picket line at Mount Sinai West on January 20, 2026, in New York City.
(Selcuk Acar / Anadolu through Getty Images)
Nearly 15,000 nurses are in their second week of the most important nurses’ strike in New York City historical past, demanding that three of town’s greatest hospitals protect healthcare advantages, secure staffing ratios, and office security protections.
Nurses represented by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), a union representing greater than 42,000 nurses statewide, walked out in protest on January 12 after delivering notices to the hospitals below the Mount Sinai, Montefiore Medical Center, and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center programs.
The nurses in NYSNA who work at these hospitals have been and not using a contract since December 31, after their calls for weren’t met throughout negotiations that started in September 2025. The nurses say hospitals have stonewalled bargaining on key points like healthcare advantages and safer staffing ratios.
Even on Thursday, after 11 days of the strike, the 2 sides remained far aside in talks. The strike comes as President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” threatens main cuts to Medicaid and federal healthcare funding to New York.
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Divya Viswanathan, a 27-year-old registered nurse who works in the toddler cardiac ICU of NewYork-Presbyterian’s Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, outlined the nurses’ calls for. “We are asking for fair pay, safe staffing ratios, safety from workplace violence and coverage from our insurance,” Viswanathan mentioned. “We’ve been negotiating for months before going to strike.”
Emma Cano, 27, who additionally works at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in the pediatric medical surgical flooring, mentioned they’re displaying up on the picket line asking for secure staffing ratios, mandating particular ratios of registered nurses to sufferers reminiscent of have been written into legal guidelines in states like California. Cano handles as much as 4 sufferers (together with transplant sufferers) throughout her shift on her flooring, however says it ought to ideally be three or fewer. She mentioned, “It takes a really big emotional toll to be able to show up for that patient when you have three, four other patients who also really need you.”
Nurses on the two different hospitals—Mount Sinai and Montefiore—went on strike for 3 days in 2023 and negotiated a contract with enforceable staffing ratios. The contract allowed impartial arbitrators to award monetary penalties when hospitals violate the staffing ratios. In 9 separate rulings in 2024, arbitrators discovered that Mount Sinai violated these ratios and awarded nurses roughly $4.7 million in monetary penalties, NYSNA mentioned.
“Hospitals want to roll back the staffing enforcement mechanisms we won in our strike three years ago,” an NYSNA official mentioned. “They also do not want to hire more nurses or improve staffing standards in units that are chronically understaffed.”
Healthcare advantages are one other central situation in the negotiations, nurses say. In all three hospitals, nurses at the moment have their medical health insurance premiums lined, however hospitals now need nurses to begin overlaying the prices themselves. Cano mentioned, “We would need to pay for it out of pocket as hospitals are proposing not to pay for it anymore.”
NYSNA officers mentioned roughly 44,000 folks—nurses and their households on the three hospitals enrolled in the union’s well being profit plan—may very well be affected by healthcare cuts.
The Nation requested all three hospitals to answer questions on staffing proposals and healthcare advantages. A spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian mentioned it has “proposed maintaining our nurses’ current employer-funded benefits.” The hospital additionally mentioned the union’s general contract calls for are unrealistic given “drastic federal cuts to Medicaid and ACA marketplaces.” Mount Sinai mentioned in a press release that there have been no discussions about reducing or discontinuing well being care advantages and accused the union of “mischaracterizing” negotiations.
NYSNA officers disputed each hospitals’ claims, stating that NewYork-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai are threatening to discontinue or drastically lower nurses’ well being advantages and have rejected the union’s proposals to proceed present protection.
A Montefiore spokesperson mentioned healthcare is “not on the negotiating table.” In a December memo, the hospital’s chief nurse government advised nurses “your existing healthcare coverage will stay exactly as it is.” Montefiore offers free medical health insurance with no premiums or deductibles.
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However, the hospital has restricted placing nurses’ entry to its pharmacy, stopping them from choosing up prescription drugs for the reason that strike began. NYSNA filed an unfair labor apply cost over the problem.
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Nurses are additionally demanding higher office security protections. They need behavioral response groups that embrace psychiatric nurses and social employees to de-escalate violent conditions. Mount Sinai had an energetic shooter incident in November, and NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital skilled a violent incident shortly earlier than the strike started.
An announcement from NYSNA mentioned that hospital executives have elevated their very own compensation considerably whereas threatening nurses’ advantages. CEO complete compensation on the three hospitals rose greater than 54 % from 2020 to 2023, based mostly on 990 tax filings. In 2024 alone, NewYork-Presbyterian CEO Steve Corwin obtained $26.3 million in complete compensation whereas Montefiore CEO Dr. Philip Ozuah obtained round $16.3 million in compensation.
NYSNA officers additionally estimate that, based mostly on a median nurse workload, Mount Sinai is spending at the very least $10 million per week to pay the 1,400 journey nurses they reportedly employed earlier than the strike started. According to Bloomberg News, the hospitals have collectively spent over $100 million on momentary journey nurses to keep up operations through the strike, paying some alternative employees greater than $9,000 per week.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who visited the picket line on Tuesday, criticized the disparity. “These executives are not having difficulty making ends meet,” Mamdani mentioned. “But too many nurses can’t make ends meet.”
Nurses additionally obtained assist from different unions on the picket line, together with firefighters, the Central Labor Council, 1199 SEIU (which represents healthcare employees), PSC-CUNY (which represents City University of New York college and workers), and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. On Tuesday, taxi drivers drove by the picket line honking their vehicles in assist of the placing nurses.
Gustavo Ajche, a frontrunner with Los Deliveristas Unidos, a supply employees group, mentioned he sees the nurses’ struggle as linked to his personal. “We see them as fellow workers asking for fair wages,” Ajche mentioned. “It is the nurses who do the work in hospitals, and we see it no different to the painstaking work delivery workers do for little wages. We wholeheartedly support the nurses strike,” he mentioned.
NYSNA president Nancy Hagans mentioned the strike’s influence extends past New York. “Nurses throughout the country are facing many of the same issues that striking New York City nurses are fighting back against—chronic understaffing that puts our patients at risk, rising workplace violence, and greedy employers who are willing to cut corners on nurse and patient safety,” Hagans mentioned. “When nurses unite and fight, we win.”
Prajwal Bhat
Prajwal Bhat is a New York City–based mostly journalist.
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