What to know
- About 3,500 Montefiore nurses and 3,625 Mount Sinai nurses went on strike Monday morning.
- Hospitals are preparing for the strike by transferring patients, diverting ambulances to other institutions, postponing non-urgent procedures and organizing the hiring of temporary staff.
- Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and hospitals Sunday night to submit their dispute to binding arbitration, but the Democrat cannot force either party into arbitration.
NEW YORK – Nurses at two of New York City’s largest hospitals went on strike on Monday, potentially leading to disruptions in emergency rooms and delivery care. The strike begins after no deal on a new contract was reached during long weekend negotiations.
The strike, which began at 6 in the morning, involves about 3,500 nurses from Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and about 3,600 nurses from Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
The New York State Nurses Association, which represents workers, said it was forced to take a drastic step as chronic understaffing leaves them caring for too many patients.
“Nurses don’t want to go on strike. Leaders pushed us into strike action by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of precarious staff harming our patients,” the union said in a statement on Sunday.
Hospitals are preparing for the strike by transferring patients, diverting ambulances to other institutions, postponing non-urgent medical procedures and organizing the hiring of temporary staff.
Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and hospitals Sunday night to take their dispute to binding arbitration, a request that was welcomed by the hospitals but not the union.
Montefiore’s management said in a statement it was willing to let an arbitrator terminate the contract “as a means of achieving a fair outcome.”
The union did not immediately accept the proposal. In a statement, she said that Hochul, a Democrat, “should listen to the nursing heroes on the front lines of COVID-19 and respect our federally protected labor and collective bargaining rights.”
The main campuses in Montefiore and Monte Sinai are the latest in a group of hospitals with union contracts that simultaneously expired. The union had initially warned it would attack them all at once, a potential calamity even in a city with as many hospitals as New York.
But one by one, the other hospitals reached agreements with the union as the deadline approached.
The nurses of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital They ratified a deal on Saturday that will give them raises of 7%, 6% and 5% over the next three years, as well as boost staffing levels. That agreement, which covers 4,000 nurses, has been seen as a model for negotiations with other hospital systems.
New York Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement Sunday that the city was preparing to deal with the impact of the strike.
“New York City Firefighters have contingency plans to divert ambulances, and NYC Health + Hospitals has contingency strategies to handle a surge in patients,” the mayor said.
The union, for its part, has urged people in need of medical care to continue seeking it, notably saying it does not view going to hospital as overstepping the pickets.
