New York nurses strike for healthcare

International

Fighting union busting and threats to healthcare, 15,000 nurses across three New York hospitals are digging in against the bosses

Nurses on the picket lines in New York this week (Photo: X/Zohran Mamdani)

Around 15,000 nurses in New York city began the fourth day of their walkout on Thursday in the first major strike in the United States this year.

Nurses at the New York-Presbyterian, Mount Sinai and Montefiore hospitals have organised lively pickets. Their red hats, red banners and homemade placards filled the streets outside the hospitals as the strikers chanted, sang and danced. 

The strikers are members of the New York State Nurses Association, fighting for safe staffing levels to protect patients and health workers. Huge numbers of unfilled vacancies in hospitals mean nurses cannot keep patients safe.

Striking nurse Sarin Grey said, “We can’t tell people that they can’t come into the emergency room. So a lot of times we’ll have ten to 14 patients for one nurse—and that’s unacceptable and unsafe.

“You can’t care for ten to 14 lives the way that you want to as a nurse. You end up doing the bare minimum to keep them alive, but we’re not able to talk to the patients, get to know them at a deeper level or give the quality of care that we want.”

Bosses at Mount Sinai have disciplined nurses who raised concerns about alleged union-busting at the hospital.

Hospital bosses are demanding workers accept cuts to their own health benefits which has infuriated the health workers.

Grey said that Mount Sinai is “refusing” to fund nurses’ increasing healthcare costs. “We’re the ones getting sick on the frontlines as we take care of sick people,” she said, adding that it’s ridiculous that “we have to fight for our healthcare”.

But union busting and denying healthcare has just generalised the nurses’ rage. Strikers are angry with Donald Trump’s regime which finds money for the military but not for healthcare. 

New York-Presbyterian hospital reported a net income of $547 million in 2024. Mount Sinai reported $114 million and Montefiore reported $288.62 million.

The New York State Nursing Association released a statement on Monday. It read, “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.

“Management at the richest hospitals in New York City are threatening to discontinue or radically cut nurses’ health benefits.”

Zohran Mamdani, the recently elected mayor of New York City, visited the nurses’ picket line on Monday.

“No New Yorker should have to fear losing access to health care,” he said. “And no nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits or less dignity for doing lifesaving work.

“Our nurses kept this city alive through its hardest moments.

“This strike is not just a question of how much nurses earn per hour or what health benefits they receive, although both of those issues matter deeply. It is also a question of who deserves to benefit from this system.”

The last nurses’ strike in New York in 2023 forced the bosses at two hospitals to employ more health workers and grant pay rises. The nurses can win again.

Strikers are black, brown and white. They are resisting their profiteering bosses and the Trump regime that is destroying the remnants of healthcare in the US.

They are a beacon to millions of workers who want to fight back against Ice repression and a government that funds war but not healthcare.