NYC nurses reach a deal to end a strike at 2 major hospitals while walkout continues at another

NEW YORK (AP) — Nurses and two major hospital systems in New York City have reached a deal to end a nearly monthlong strike over staffing levels, workplace safety, health insurance and other issues.

The tentative agreement announced Monday by the union representing nurses involves the Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospital systems. Nurses remain on strike at New York Presbyterian.

The walkout began Jan. 12, prompting the hospitals to scramble to hire legions of temporary nurses to fill in during a demanding flu season.

The union said members at Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospitals will vote on whether to ratify the contracts and return to work this week.

The three-year deal affects roughly 10,500 of the some 15,000 nurses on strike at some of the city’s biggest private, nonprofit hospitals, with thousands of beds among them.

“For four weeks, nearly 15,000 NYSNA members held the line in the cold and in the snow for safe patient care,” Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, said in a statement. “Now, nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems are heading back to the bedside with our heads held high.”

The pact also includes new protections against workplace violence, including specific protections for transgender and immigrant nurses and patients, as well as safeguards against artificial intelligence, the union said.

Nurses at Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and Mount Sinai Morningside and West will vote to ratify their contracts starting today, the union said.

If the tentative contract agreements are ratified, nurses will return to work on Saturday.

A Montefiore spokesperson declined to comment other than to say its nurses are expected to vote Wednesday on the pact.

Spokespeople for the other two hospital systems didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The affected hospitals have insisted their operations are running smoothly during the walkout, with organ transplants, cardiac surgeries and other complex procedures largely uninterrupted. Many of the medical centers, however, canceled scheduled surgeries, transferred some patients and discharged others ahead of the strike.

The striking nurses priorities vary by hospital, but staffing has generally been a central issue. Nurses said they have been overloaded, and that the hospitals wouldn’t commit to staffing levels that are manageable for nurses and safe for patients.

The hospitals maintain they’ve filled and even added nursing jobs over the last three years, digging out of a pandemic-era staffing crisis.

The hospitals and nurses also have been at odds over benefits, and the union sought workplace security upgrades and restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence.

Hospital staffers’ longstanding security concerns flared into public view when a gunman entered Mount Sinai in November and a man holed up in a Brooklyn hospital with a sharp object last month. Police killed both men.

The hospitals said the union’s demands were exorbitant. They say unionized nurses’ salaries already average $162,000 to $165,000 a year, not including benefits.

The nurses countered that the medical centers’ top executives make millions of dollars a year, an argument underscored by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and other politicians who have visited the picket lines over the weeks.

Not every hospital in the three health care systems was affected by the strike. Nor were any city-run public hospitals. Other private hospitals reached last-minute deals with the union.

Nurses staged a three-day strike in 2023 in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems. They ultimately inked contracts that raised pay 19% over three years and sought to make staffing improvements enforceable by allowing for extra pay if nurses worked short-handed.