Nearly 16,000 nurses across New York City walked off the job on January 12, 2026 in the largest strike of nurses in the city’s history. The strike impacts some of the largest hospital systems in the nation with picket lines at 3 major hospitals. Mount Sinai and Montefiore locations saw thousands of nurses walk out as well as the largest hospital in the country by number of beds, NewYork-Presbyterian hospital (Pix 11).
The strike is led and organized by members of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), a labor union of NYC nurses. The NYSNA is demanding higher wages, increased hospital security, and safe staffing ratios. Hospital representatives call these demands “reckless and unreasonable” (ABC News). Hospital administrators have attempted multiple union-busting tactics resulting in further protesting. Montefiore Medical Center accused the union of “protecting nurses who came to work drunk”, yet no evidence suggests this happened. At Mount Sinai Hospital, three labor and delivery nurses were fired after administration claims they ‘sabotaged’ union strike drills the hospital conducted the week prior. They claimed the nurses “hoarded supplies” and hid them from travel nurses. The accused nurses claim they were assembling admission baskets for patients (Gothamist). Admission baskets are a common amenity at medical centers, especially in departments with short stays like labor and delivery. They provide patients with basic personal care items for their stay including toothpaste, toothbrush, hairbrush, tissues, and socks among other items.
During the strike, hospitals remain staffed by traveling nurses. These nurses, known as Scab’s, are highly paid and heavily worked. Most hospitals are offering week-long contracts starting at nearly $10,000 to work five 12-hour shifts during negotiations, equating to nearly $167 per hour. The term ‘Scab’ comes from the idea that these nurses are “covering the wound” that is the unsafe working conditions of the hospital (Nursing Central). While demands for higher pay are shut down, New York hospitals have continued to lose a total of $100 million paying for travel nurse contracts. Union organizers point to the exorbitantly high salary of Hospital administrators as a source of a budgeting imbalance. The numbers reveal the President and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Steven J. Corwin made a whopping $26.3 million in 2024. For reference, the average annual salary of a registered nurse in New York City is 161 times smaller at $163,000 (The Mirror) There are no scheduled negotiation meetings between any NYC hospital and NYSNA representatives, making it unclear how much longer the strike will last.
