Almost 15,000 nurses walked off the job in New York City, demanding better working conditions, marking the largest nurses’ strike in the city’s history as contract negotiations failed to gain traction.Workers walked off the job early on Monday morning across three private hospital systems in the largest city in the US, Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“After months of bargaining, management refused to make meaningful progress on core issues that nurses have been fighting for: safe staffing for patients, healthcare benefits for nurses, and workplace violence protections,” the New York State Nursing Association said in a statement on Monday.“Management at the richest hospitals in New York City are threatening to discontinue or radically cut nurses’ health benefits,” the nursing group added.NewYork-Presbyterian reported a net income of $547m in 2024. Mount Sinai reported $114m, while Montefiore reported $288.62m, according to ProPublica’s nonprofit tracker, which monitors the finances of nonprofit organisations, which these three hospitals are.Striking nurses claim hospital management has threatened to cut healthcare benefits. The union alleges that hospitals are attempting to roll back safe staffing standards. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the validity of these claims.In 2021, New York state signed into law a requirement that hospitals establish committees at every facility to outline staffing plans by division, including a minimum one-to-two nurse-to-patient ratio in critical care units, as strains on the healthcare system became amplified during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Advertis …
