Striking NYSNA Nurses Hold the Line; Give Mamdani a Pass on Hochul Endorsement
Striking New York City nurses Work-Bites spoke to on Feb. 6 said they remain most concerned about short-staffing and workplace protections. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Safe starting ratios and protections against workplace violence remained top of mind for striking New York City nurses still holding down the line outside Mount Sinai West on 10th Avenue in Manhattan on Friday afternoon—even as at least some of them gave Mayor Zohran Mamdani a pass for endorsing hospital boss-ally Governor Kathy Hochul’s re-election bid.
“We just want mental detectors so patients can’t come in with weapons or anything like that— and just better security checks,” said a veteran OR nurse who spoke to Work-Bites outside the hospital on Feb. 6.
Her fellow companion, another Mount Sinai West OR nurse with seven years on the job, said, “there’s really nothing” in the way of security at the hospital right now.
“There’s just a [security] guy standing there, but there have been people who have come and threatened doctors and threatened other people,” she said. “They put up a picture of the individual they’re looking for, but that’s the most they’ve done—and that’s after incidences that have happened already.”
NYSNA picket line outside Mount Sinai West on 10th Avenue..
The OR nurses, part of the New York State Nurses Association’s nearly month-old strike, declined to detail the exact nature of those incidences, but other nurses Work-Bites spoke to on Friday said that consistent short-staffing also makes their jobs precarious in other ways, too.
“We were feeling safe when [management] was making sure the nurse to patient ratio was 1:2—but without that language it’ll be really hard for us,” a nurse working in Mount Sinai West’s NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] for the last three years told Work-Bites. “Management will make us take care of three patients or even four patients if we are short-staffed—and then we cannot give full care to our patients.”
Striking NYSNA nurses say they won significant safe-staffing ratios during the last contract fight and job action held just three years ago when about 7,000 of them struck for three days.
“We were really grateful how it worked out last time after the last strike and what happened with that language,” the NICU nurse who requested anonymity added. "But now I think Mount Sinai is trying to take it away.”
New York City educator expresses solidarity with Striking NYSNA nurses on Feb. 6.
The heads of the Mount Sinai, New York Presbyterian, and Montefiore hospital systems have spent more than $100 million on replacement nurses during the nearly month-old strike. Travel nurses are being paid as much as $10,000 or more a week to do the work of striking NYSNA nurses.
Mount Sinai CEO Brendan Carr, who rakes in a reported $6 million a year, released a statement one day prior to Friday’s NYSNA action outside Mount Sinai West saying, “Progress continues to be frustratingly slow and we do not yet have closure on an agreement.”
Governor Kathy Hochul signed Executive Order 56 before the nurses walkout began on Jan. 12 making it possible for Carr and the heads of the other lucrative hospital networks to bring in out-of-state travel nurses to help break the strike.
Newly-elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who had previously joined striking nurses on the picket line, raised the ire of many last week when he endorsed Hochul’s re-election bid with former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams filling out the ticket as lieutenant governor.
Striking NYSNA nurses helped cap off a week of demonstrations and rallies with a picket line set up outside Mount Sinai West on 10 Avenue, Feb. 6.
“The temptation is to allow difference to turn into distrust,” Mamdani said in a statement following the endorsement. “But over the course of our relationship, I have come to trust Governor Hochul as someone willing to engage in an honest dialogue that leads to results.”
At least two of the striking nurses Work-Bites spoke to on Friday were willing to give the new mayor a pass on the endorsement.
“[Mayor Mamdani] has to do what he has to do right now to get his job done—and we have to do what we have to do to get our job done.”
“He has to do what he has to do right now to get his job done—and we have to do what we have to do to get our job done,” said one of the striking nurses willing to speak anonymously.
“He’s come into this position with a big deficit left by the previous mayor,” the second NYSNA member said. “He’s in a very difficult position right now, and at least he has shown up in support of us.”
At this point, none o the striking nurses Work-Bites interviewed on Feb. 6 said they know when this latest job action will end.
“I really hope to have an end to these negotiations and the strike,” one of the striking nurses said. “But we are not sure how it’s going to go on. We are just being hopeful—we’re continuing to hold the line and trying to support each other.”