Nearly 15,000 nurses went on strike Monday morning at several key New York City hospitals in what could evolve into a protracted labor battle in the city coinciding with a severe flu season.
The union said that nurses went on strike because management refused to agree to safe staffing levels for patients and has threatened to discontinue or cut nurses’ health benefits. The nurses are also demanding higher wages and protections against violence on the job.
In anticipation of the strike, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared a state of emergency Friday, saying that a “disaster is imminent.” She warned that a strike “could jeopardize the lives of thousands of New Yorkers and patients.”
The nurses walked out at Montefiore Medical Center, New York-Presbyterian/Columbia and Mount Sinai Hospital, as well as two other Mount Sinai system hospitals — among the city’s leading health institutions.
“Hospital management refuses to address our most important issues — patient and nurse safety,” New York State Nurses Association President Nancy Hagans said in a statement. “It is deeply offensive that they would rather use their billions to fight against their own nurses than settle a fair contract.”
Leaders at the affected hospitals said that hospitals remain open and they plan to provide safe patient care during an extended strike.
A statement from Mount Sinai said the union refused “to move on from its extreme economic demands, which we cannot agree to.” “We are ready with 1,400 qualified and specialized nurses,” a statement from the hospital said.
Joe Solmonese, senior vice president of communications at Montefiore, called the union leadership’s wage demands “reckless” and said that the hospital is “resolute in our commitment to providing safe and seamless care, regardless of how long the strike may last.”
Hospital executives had preparing for weeks to keep the medical systems running during a strike, including by obtaining contracts with staffing agencies that provide traveling nurses, the Greater New York Hospital Association confirmed.
Hospitals canceled some surgeries, planned to transfer infants out of neonatal intensive care units and discharged patients ahead of the strike, according to the trade group.
In 2023, some 7,000 nurses at two of the same hospitals went on strike over staffing levels worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, winning new minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and agreements to pay penalties to nurses who work under-resourced shifts.
But the nurse’s union said that the hospitals are trying to walk back some of those protections.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said in a statement expressing support for striking nurses that “hospital management is threatening nurses’ health benefits, rolling back hard-won staffing protections, and doing too little to address workplace violence.”
A gunman entered Mount Sinai in November, and last week, a man armed with a sharp object barricaded himself inside a room at another New York City hospital with another patient and a security guard. Police killed both men.
The Montefiore spokesperson said that the union is asking for a nearly 40 percent pay increase for nurses, totaling $3.6 billion.
The nurse’s union said that “as of September 2025, these three hospitals had on hand twice as much cash and cash equivalents as they had in 2017,” after adjusting for inflation, even with new safe staffing ratios. The union highlighted executive compensation that has increased by millions in recent years.
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