By Gus Saltonstall
The two largest hospitals on the Upper West Side are being affected by a major strike by nurses that began on Monday.
Nearly 15,000 nurses across New York City are on strike as of Tuesday at 10 a.m., including those at Mount Sinai West at 1000 10th Avenue, between West 58th and 59th streets, and Mount Sinai Morningside at 440 West 114th Street, off the corner of Amsterdam Avenue.
Along with the Mount Sinai Hospital system, the strike is also affecting New York Presbyterian and Montefiore hospitals.
“After months of bargaining, management refused to make meaningful progress on core issues that nurses have been fighting for: safe staffing for patients, healthcare benefits for nurses, and workplace violence protections,” the union representing the nurses said in a statement issued Monday. “Management at the richest hospitals in New York City are threatening to discontinue or radically cut nurses’ health benefits.”
The nurses most recent contract expired on December 31, 2025.
The union has identified manageable staffing levels and workplace safety as the top concerns.
The hospitals affected by the strike, including the two on the Upper West Side, are hiring temporary nurses to try to fill the gap.
On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order stating the strike was likely to “impact the availability and delivery of care, threatening public health.”
West Side Rag will update this article, if an agreement between the two sides is reached.
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Countdown to comments from the usual suspects to the effect that the nurses should just quit if they don’t like their working conditions. (Maybe they can find positions in baking.)
Like clockwork.
Stay healthy, guys! I myself find that not getting shot in the head (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Salvo) helps promote vitality.
If what the striking nurses fear most is confined to deranged former NYPD officers on rampages (https://gothamist.com/news/with-strike-looming-nurses-press-safety-demands-after-deadly-nypd-shooting-at-hospital), perhaps they can all sleep easily, right?
The nurses should just quit if they don’t like their working conditions. Why not in baking.
Indeed, there might be openings at the revered Breads Bakery in Lincoln Square.
The same people who said we should defund the police now want cops or armed security. What about the social workers?
Deputize social workers? Well, it’s a concept….
Take a few million off the CEO and the administrators and pay the nurses.
Get the nurse who I work with everyday get off their ass and take care of the patients that could be your family . I worked in one of these hospitals for 33 years, and those young nurse sit on their phones all day with the bells ringer. So don’t believe what the nysna are saying. They get paid if we get a good contact
Your boss must like you.
Is that your criterion for taking a stand? Will the boss like me?
If, heaven forfend, you should ever find yourself in an ICU, full of tubes & such, and a nurse asks, “Say, you wouldn’t be that Jerome from WSR, would you?”, prudence should probably dictate your reply.
Maybe they could send a baker to take care of him….
If the middleman, parasitic, no-added-value insurance companies weren’t siphoning a huge slice of the pie there would be more money to pay the people who provide the actual medical care to patients.
Agree, so I would assume that you do not have health insurance and pay everything directly and out of pocket as needed, right?
Hopefully DSA does not crash this strike
Too late
The average registered nurse salary in NYC is around $100,000 to $110,000… There are around 170,000 of them in our city. But hey, lets keep blaming the hospital CEOs for the healthcare cost being too high…
I’m one of those nurse and total agree with you. I have been a nurse at one of those hospital for 34 years and the nurse you have working since covid are there for only the money. The sit all day at the desk on their phones while pts bell are not being answered . No experience , no work ethic at all , but want more. Hope your family doesn’t get one of these many nurse that have been hired since COVID , and only for the money , because they are not nurses
I know of nurses who are at Mount Sinai who spend more time traveling to exotic destinations than actually working and helping patients!
With NYC cost of living continuing to increase, and the fact that healthcare workers like nurses probably go through more dangerous situations during their workdays than the average person, it’s a bit worrisome that you discount their needs.
Especially when pay packages for Mount Sinai were around $7MM in 2023!
@jerome By “them” you mean the ones that we clapped nightly at 7 pm for not too long ago ? How quickly we forget. At some time, all of us or our loved ones, will be in a local hospital, and trust me, you will want safe staffing ratios & quality nursing care. The CEO salaries are in the millions..a skilled professional with a 4+ year degree in NYC shouldn’t make over 100 K ? And by the way, starting salary at these hospitals well exceed 110K to even begin, and that is without a nighttime differential.
They earn every penny of that
Agreed. It’s the nurses who keep you well (and most doctors would agree).
You try being a nurse in a NYC hospital…would you even last ten minutes?
Nice try
If you read the article, that’s not what they’re striking for. They’re striking for healthcare benefits and workplace safety. Even if they were striking for pay, 100k is not much after tax, esp for a job where you get abused all day while caring for vulnerable people. Meanwhile the CEOs are, in fact, making millions.
According to an article on Bloomberg, the starting salary for nurses at the three hospitals is $112K per annum, and the salary for nurse with experience is $165K per annum. However, why shouldn’t nurses be paid well? The problem are not those working hard, but those either doing a bad job or on the dole. 45% of NYC is on Medicaid, that’s the problem, not nurses getting paid well!
Well, there is no reason for them to make 10-20 million. The cost of healthcare is high due to insurance companies profits.
If physicians are the officers, generals etc., then nurses are the enlisted corps. No battle against illnesses can ever be fought or won without these front line healthcare warriors.
To be an RN requires a degree in nursing. And becoming one is no walk in the park- just
remember there are three shifts they cover- 24/7. Not everyone gets to work 7a to 3P.
Sorry they have to resort to a strike to be heard. Let’s all hope this ends soon, as its hell
on the rest of the staff without their work and support.
Let’s start by saying management is refusing to bargain. The want us to pay for healthcare they don’t even accept at our own hospital system. They are refusing to offer safe nurse:patient ratios and zero pay increase ti combat the cost of living. Most times they are not even showing up to bargain, even with a mediator involved. THEY want no part of bringing us back. They have, however, found temporary travel nurse that they are paying $7000-$8000 THOUSAND a week while also paying for their airfare, all travel expenses, hotel accommodation, meals, and transportation to and from hospital in luxury shuttle buses ( we watch them drive right past the picket line). These are all REAL FACTS. In media they have stated the hired 1400 alone at one location, how is this acceptable when giving us a fair contract is ignored? They laugh at us in the meetings and walk out, we have all seen this via zoom.
Please post the truth about these greedy, profit over patients executives. They do not deserve to be in charge of anything!! Please, post data about THEM.
I have (sadly) had to use emergency rooms more often than most people, particularly over the past few years. I began by using Mt. Sinai West, since I live in the West 80s and it is closest. But it is, by far, the worst, noisiest, most chaotic ER in range. In addition to having dealing with many homeless (often mentally ill) people – some of whom scream or yell constantly – the public may not be aware (and I only found this out much later) that Mt. Sinai West is the primary ER serving NYPD perps and victims of perps on the West Side. So there are always NYPD officers and men handcuffed to gurneys (like you see on TV). It is NOT a good place for “normal” ER issues. “Chaotic” is far too nice a word.
Mt. Sinai Morningside is much better, cleaner, quieter and better managed. It is still somewhat chaotic, but it is more “controlled” than Mt. Sinai West.
But my secret (and I know I shouldn’t reveal it or everyone will want to have an emergency…lol) is the ER at Lenox Hill, which is the polar opposite of Mt. Sinai West, and almost equidistant from me in a cab. It is almost impossible to describe the 180 degree difference: much quieter, no screaming, fewer machines beeping, larger staff, better run. It is almost a “pleasure” to be there (were it not an EMERGENCY room). I have now been there at least half a dozen to a dozen times in the past two to three years, and it is always worth the cab ride to avoid Mt. Sinai West.
Depending on where you live, if going across the park to 77th and Lex is a similar distance to either of the Mt. Sinai ERs, I strongly recommend that you use it.
Our entire family has used Mount Sinai West (Roosevelt Hospital) for many years, and received excellent care. This includes my elderly Mom. I have even been there recently and found the care to be very very good. The staff is very dedicated and I hope the nurses get what they are asking for and deserve. Nurses are amazing!
At least this is not a country like Morocco where the doctors perform surgeries in emergency rooms without any anesthetics!
Is this a result of Trump’s declassifying Nursing as a profession?:
Myth vs. Fact: The Definition of Professional Degrees
What is All the Buzz About Nursing No Longer Being Designated as a Professional Program?
Nursing no longer considered a professional degree by Trump administration
I’m not sure how Montefiore is considered the “richest hospitals in NYC”. It does an amazing job to help those without medical insurance yet is always operating in the red. We are lucky to have them yet they cannot fund a 19% pay raise every three years.
Maybe the nurses can volunteer their time in a free Iran where they will be desperately needed!
We are with the nurses on strike! I am a scientist and my lab joined the nurses union picket this week.
The staffing ratios are horrific for nurses. My close friend is a nurse at Mt Sinai. She had to move between several positions in the last few years because the units can be so abusive. She has worked with an OR doctor who was abusive to nurses in the OR. She has been screamed at, cursed out, and had object thrown at her by irrate patients. She has been forced to work in rooms where the HVAC is broken and the hospital doesn’t reply to her many requests to fix it, and inside the room is a patient with a highly infectious disease. She has worked for a year in a unit of dying children, where she had the responsibility of being the last person and caretaker they’d interacted with before they passed. She has had to go to therapy because of all the suffering she has seen. She has many times had to stay hours past the end of her shift **while pregnant** because the nurses are so understaffed that when one nurse gets sick, well… she stays past her shift because otherwise the patients have no nurse. She walks 20k steps a day, taking care of patients.
It’s shameful and disgusting how the hospitals are acting. They can afford to pay the traveling nurses 7-8k per week to weaken the power of the union. They are not acting in good faith and refuse to meet the union even at the bargaining table… all the while the C suite gets millions off the labor of others.
If any of my loved ones are in the hospital, I hope they are taken care of staff who feel respected, are earning the pay they deserve, are handling a small number of patients so that everyone gets the care they need.
Starting salary of a college graduate in tech is easily 120k. I definitely think being a nurse is a tougher job. Inflation has been horrible. They deserve the pay raise.
We stand with the nurses!