New York City's nurses are still on the picket line, and they're talking about safety as well as pay. Five days into a strike involving nearly 15,000 nurses at three major systems—NewYork-Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, and Montefiore—only NewYork-Presbyterian had returned to the bargaining table by Thursday night, and those talks ended without a deal, the New York Times reports. A hospital spokesperson said the union's demands were "unreasonable" but insisted the system is negotiating in good faith and already has strong staffing. Mount Sinai's CEO said there had been "no progress" and no new talks were scheduled there or at Montefiore.
The union says the walkout is about staffing levels, wages, and safety. On the safety front, nurses describe workplaces where they feel physically at risk. A Mount Sinai nurse practitioner recalled leaving the hospital in November as a gunman threatened the emergency department, saying staff received little formal guidance and relied on word-of-mouth in the moment. At NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist last week, police fatally shot a 62-year-old patient who, officials say, had barricaded himself with a security guard and another patient while armed with a "sharp weapon," the Times reports. Nurses say such incidents are part of a larger pattern of violence and inadequate protection.
At a union rally Thursday, Mount Sinai nurse Sheryl Ostroff said nurses are often targeted by frustrated patients, the AP reports. "I've been scratched in the face. I have been bitten in multiple places. I have been kicked in the ribs where it leaves bruises, spit on, pushed, punched, sexually assaulted—you name it," she said. "It's not acceptable, and we want our hospitals to protect us. Why is that a hard ask?" She said she hasn't quit the profession because she sees the "humanity" in patients.
- In an opinion piece at the New York Daily News, Linda H. Aiken, founding director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, says nurses "did not walk out lightly. They are sounding an alarm about unsafe nurse staffing risking patients' wellbeing and violence impacting staff, which are related because delays and missed care can trigger reactions similar to road rage in tense medical situations." Strikes, she writes, are "almost always a last resort. They happen when nurses believe patient safety has been pushed to a breaking point."
Hospitals counter that they are not ignoring the problem. Montefiore points to police presence, trained security, and wearable panic buttons. Mount Sinai says it launched a five-year safety plan in 2024, including more security staff and weapon detection. NewYork-Presbyterian says it is "constantly" upgrading security, and the head of the Greater New York Hospital Association called the union's claims "extraordinarily misleading," noting that hospitals backed a new state law requiring violence-prevention plans. The New York State Nurses Association, however, says hospitals have rejected some of their suggestions for preventing violence. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined nurses on a picket line Monday.
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