Strike by 7,000 nurses in New York begins this Monday (9)

A walkout of more than 7,000 nurses at two major hospitals in New York City began at 6 am local time on Monday (9), after negotiations aimed at averting a strike broke down overnight.

Interim agreements have been reached in recent days, covering nurses at several hospitals, including two new agreements late Sunday night (8). But negotiations with Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and three locations at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx quickly failed.

“After negotiating late into the night at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital yesterday, no tentative agreement has been reached. Today, more than 7,000 nurses at two hospitals are on strike for fair contracts that improve patient care,” the New York State Association of Nurses said in a statement on Monday.

There were hundreds of nurses and supporters at the picket line in front of Mount Sinai on Monday morning, occupying two city blocks. The picket line spread out into the street, sometimes blocking traffic. Passing truckers honked their horns in support.

Both hospitals said Monday morning that efforts to reach an agreement had been unsuccessful.

“NYSNA leadership walked out of negotiations shortly after 1:00 am ET, refusing to accept the exact same 19.1% salary offer agreed to by eight other hospitals, including two other Mount Sinai Health System campuses, and disregarding the resolution of the governor to avoid a strike,” Lucia Lee, spokeswoman for Mount Sinai, said in a statement to CNN .

Montefiore said it was “a sad day for New York City.”

“Despite Montefiore’s offer of a 19.1% compound salary increase – the same offer agreed upon at the richest of our peer institutions – and a commitment to create more than 170 new nursing positions … NYSNA leadership has decided to step aside of its patients’ beds,” the medical center said in a statement.

While the union agreed to the same increases at other hospitals, it said its main complaint at Mount Sinai and Montefiore was that nurses were overworked and facing burnout.

“We need management to come to the table and provide a better team,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said at a Sunday afternoon press conference.

The union insists it is on strike in an effort to improve patient care.

“Going to the hospital to get the care you need is not crossing our line of attack. Patients should seek hospital care immediately if they need it,” the statement said. “We preferred to be the ones to provide that care, but our bosses pressured us to stay here.”

According to Hagans, Montefiore has 760 nurse positions, adding that “often a nurse in the emergency department is responsible for 20 patients instead of the standard three patients.”

On Sunday night, New York Governor Kathy Hochul urged the administration and the union to agree to mandatory arbitration as a way to avoid the strike. Although the management of the two hospitals embraced the idea, the union did not.

“We will not give up in our fight to ensure our patients have enough nurses at their bedside,” the union said in response to Hochul’s suggestion of arbitration.

New York Mayor Eric Adams urged all parties on Sunday night to “remain at the negotiating table for as long as necessary to reach a voluntary agreement.”

contingency plans

Hospitals have been preparing for a strike since the nurses’ union announced its plans 10 days ago. Affected hospitals plan to pay temporary “traveling” nurses to replace them whenever possible, and some have already started transferring patients.

A spokesman for Mount Sinai said Monday that it had brought in “hundreds” of traveling nurses and that some of the hospital’s non-nursing staff had been relocated. There are 3,600 nurses in the Mount Sinai union.

Montefiore released a notice to employees, obtained by CNN telling nurses how to leave the union and stay on the job if they wanted to continue caring for their patients.

Mount Sinai, which operates two hospitals that reached agreements on Sunday night, and which is still facing a strike, began transferring babies in the neonatal intensive care unit late last week. Hospitals facing the possibility of strikes have already taken steps to postpone some elective procedures.

The union says that hospitals will spend more on hiring temporary nurses at a significantly higher cost. He argues that hospitals should agree to his demands to hire more staff and grant the raises the union is seeking.

“As nurses, our primary concern is patient safety,” Hagans said in a statement on Friday. “Yet the nurses … were forced to work understaffed, stretched to the limit, sometimes with one nurse in the Emergency Department responsible for 20 patients. This is not safe for nurses or our patients.”

a contentious negotiation

Hospitals say they are doing what they can to hire more nursing staff.

“Mount Sinai is appalled by NYSNA’s reckless actions,” Mount Sinai said in a statement on Friday. “The union is putting patient care at risk and is forcing valuable Mount Sinai nurses to choose between their dedication to patient care and their own livelihood.”

Nurses at the first hospital to reach an interim agreement, the New York-Presbyterian, ratified that agreement in a result announced by the union on Saturday. It was close, with 57% of nurses voting yes and 43% against. The provisional agreements reached in recent days still need to be ratified by grassroots union members before they come into force.

Strikes have become more common across the country as tight labor markets and unhappiness with working conditions have led union workers to flex their muscles more often at the bargaining table.

There were 385 strikes in 2022, up 42% from 270 in 2021, according to Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The US Department of Labor, which only tracks large strikes of 1,000 or more workers, recorded 20 strikes in the first 11 months of 2022, a 33% increase from the same period in 2021.

Numerous nursing strikes were among the reported stoppages, with many unions citing burnout and ill health among members.

Four of the 20 strikes reported by the Labor Department last year involved nurses’ unions. The biggest was a three-day strike by the 15,000-member Minnesota Association of Nurses involving 13 state hospitals.

— CNN’s Tina Burnside, Artemis Moshtaghian, and Ramishah Maruf contributed to this report.