On January 12th, 2026, approximately 15,000 nurses walked off the job in form of strike. The union claims they are striking to protect their healthcare benefits, secure contract provisions addressing staffing levels, and protection against workplace violence. However, hospitals claim that the union is demanding “unrealistic” as well as unaffordable pay raises, while also stating they had no plans to cut nurses’ health benefits, contrary to popular belief. At the same time, the New York State Nurses Association, NYSNA for short, claims that hospitals have grossly mischaracterized their salary demands.
One hospital system, Mount Sinai, said that the financial demands originally made by NYSNA, would increase average pay to $275,000. Marc Kramer, the lead negotiator for Mount Sinai Hospital and the President of the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes of New York has said “From the very start, these negotiations have been primarily about NYSNA’s financial demands, plain and simple.”
“If they were to move away from the money for just a second and look at the basic needs of human care, maybe they can see what we are fighting for,” said Johnaira Dilone-Florian, a Nurse Practitioner at Montefiore who was on the picket line on the third day of the strike. That line of thinking has been a clear through line for the union.
Overall, this has not been about the money but rather the support and benefits the nurses are asking for, it’s about workplace violence that leaves them in danger with no protection and the expectation put in place that they must deal with it. It’s about insufficient staffing that leaves them overworked and underpaid, doing the work of 10 people while only being paid for 1.
While the strike has been happening, the hospitals have been staffed with temporary “travel” nurses as well as offering “incentives” to the staff who were unable to or didn’t wish to work. Around 20% of nurses continued working in the first couple of days into the strike, with being offered bonuses. Companies providing the ‘strike-nurses’ are paying them at a premium rate and, in some cases, special bonuses to ensure staffing. The role of nurses is necessary in order to keep the hospitals going. Many are asking how they have the funds for these incentives and extra bonus pay that they seemingly didn’t have to offer before the nurses went on strike.
As of January 25th, the 13-day strike hasn’t come to an end, but rather a temporary compromise. The New York State Nurses Association said while the agreement was being discussed, “NYSNA nurses fought and cleared a major hurdle on one of the key sticking points in bargaining, maintaining health benefits for frontline nurses and our families.” Working through mediators, Mount Sinai and New York Presbyterian agreed to maintain the current high-quality NYSNA Plan A health coverage without cuts.
A concrete solution still has to be negotiated between NYSNA and NY hospitals; “NYSNA nurses at all four hospitals are ready and willing to bargain in good faith on other priority issues to settle fair contracts whenever mediators call us back to the table.”
As of the 28th the strike is still ongoing, hopefully with a light at the end of the tunnel.
