More than 7,000 nurses at two New York City hospitals began a walkout at 6 a.m. Monday after contract negotiations broke down overnight.
Though tentative deals have been reached with nurses at several other New York City hospitals, those at Mount Sinai hospital on Manhattans Upper East Side and at three locations of the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx rejected their offers.
“After bargaining late into the night at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital yesterday, no tentative agreements were reached. Today, more than 7,000 nurses at two hospitals are on strike for fair contracts that improve patient care,” the New York State Nurses Association said in a statement Monday.
Videos shared by Instagram user @ashleymac02 show the striking nurses outside Mount Sinai early Monday, decked out in red and waving signs that read, “More Nurses, Less Millionaire Exec$,” and, “Dont Silence Our Voices on Staffing.”
“The union refused to accept the exact same offer of a 19.1 percent wage increase over three years that it agreed to at eight other hospitals, including Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West, and disregarded Governor Hochuls proposal for binding arbitation [sic] to avoid a strike,” Mount Sinai said in a statement.
The union said that at the striking hospitals, the sticking point is not wages but understaffing.
“We call on Gov. Hochul to join us in putting patients over profits and to enforce existing nurse staffing laws,” the NYSNA said in a statement. “Nurses dont want to strike. Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms our patients.”
