New York-Presbyterian Nurses Still on Strike as Mount Sinai and Montefiore Ratify Contracts

About 4,500 nurses remain on strike against New York-Presbyterian after workers rejected the pact which the union bargaining committee had already rejected.

That means pickets remain up at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia at W. 165th St and Fort Washington Ave. on the UWS.

But longest nurses’ strike in New York City is over for three Mount Sinai hospitals in Manhattan including the original Mount Sinai on the UES and Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside, which were originally part of St. Luke’s Hospital, and the Montefiore Health System in the Bronx. Rank and file nurses overwhelmingly approved tentative pacts on Feb. 10 returned to work by Feb. 14

The nurses for the four hospitals will see salaries rise four percent each year of the contract, according to the union.

Nurses at Mount Sinai gave it an 87 percent yes; 96 percent of nurses at Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West gave it a thumbs up and Montefiore nurses ratified it with 86 percent.

The NYSNA top brass presented the pact to the rank and file nurses at all three hospital systems even though the bargaining committee at New York-Presbyterian remained uncomfortable with staffing rules and urged worked to reject the pact. The union did not release the percentage of workers who voted no.

”We believe all striking nurses deserve to see the details of their tentative agreements and get the opportunity to vote on whether to ratify a new contract,” union president Nancy Hagans said on Feb. 10 before the vote took place on Feb. 11.

New York Presbyterian management said it welcomes nurses who wanted to return and urged the union to reconsider the pact.

The strike was unusually contentious compared to three years ago when a strike against Mount Sinai and Montefiore lasted only three days. The hospital systems last time around appeared to be caught off guard. This time around, the hospitals had begun to bring in traveling nurses at the cost of $9,000 a week and had brought in a high priced PR firm to try to counter the natural good will that nurses appeared to enjoy. The hospitals said that initial salary demands by the union were excessive especially in light of the cuts in federal health care funds that all hospitals are facing.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani twice jointed a picket line outside a Mount Sinai hospital and one of them was join by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Public advocate Jumaane Williams also joined striking workers and various union members from taxi cab drivers to the carpenters union joined the picket lines. FDNY fire engines would blare horns in support while passing the striking nurses.

The strike began on Jan. 12 with nearly 15,000 nurses walking off the job. Through most of the strike, nurses and their allies walked the picket lines in bitter cold temperatures but kept spirits up with pizza, hot chocolate and warming buses.

Nurses have long complained that many hospitals are chronically understaffed putting patient care at risk. And the new pacts include increased staffing levels.

”Nurses set out to improve patient care because every patient is a VIP,” said Hagans, president of the NYSNA. “Our contracts ensure that our hospitals are safer places--through increased staffing, workplace violence protections and more.

“The past several weeks have been challenging, emotional and exhausting in different ways for all of us,” said Dr. Brenday G. Carr in an email to employees at Mount Sinai. “Moving forward after a strike can bring a wide range of feelings: relief, uncertainty, anxiety or all of the above.”