Photo by Síle Moloney
Nurses at Montefiore, Mt. Sinai, and New York Presbyterian hospital systems, who are also members of New York State Nurses Association union, continued their strike action on Day 2, Tuesday, Jan. 13. They are seen here outside Montefiore Medical Center in Norwood. Read more about their concerns in our recent story here, prior to strike action, and our follow-up story on Day 1 of the strike here.
We spoke to Montefiore RN Judy Gonzalez, who, herself, is receiving treatment for a serious illness, on the picket line outside Montefiore’s Moses campus in Norwood on Tuesday, who said, “Montefiore is really refusing to negotiate a contract with us; that’s really clear. We’re out here for our patients. We’re very upset at the disparity and treatment of our patients in The Bronx.”
Gonzalez added, “Our patients are not treated the way they’re treated in Montefiore’s suburban facilities and our patients deserve better. Our patients live in this ZIP code. Our patients are poor. Our patients are Black and brown. Our patients are immigrants. Some of our patients don’t speak English. They’re elderly. They’re on Medicaid and Medicare, but we believe that all patients deserve the same right to quality healthcare and we want enough staff to care for them.”
She continued, “We don’t want them jammed in there like cattle in an ER. We don’t want them placed in the hallways. We want every patient here to get the same treatment that the patients get at White Plains Hospital. The nurses are the ones that keep the hospitals going, the doctors, the nurses, the ancillary staff, not these Wall Street types, these hedge fund types that are running the hospital. It’s not about profit. It’s about patients and that’s why we’re out here and we’re not going to allow them to take back all the gains we’ve made over all these years that nurses fought and died for, for these improvements in care, and the protection of our practice. We are not going to allow that to happen.”
Gonzalez concluded, “Everybody is saying the same thing. We’re here for the patients. It’s not about money. Montefiore is paying millions of dollars, millions of dollars to [scam? / inaudible] nurses who are only here for the money, while they’re stepping all over the nurses who care about this place, who have been loyal to this place, who have been here longer than any of these MBAs who are running the show right now.” Read Montefiore’s previous responses to the nurses’ allegations here. We’ve since reached out to Montefiore to ask if they have any additional comments on Gonzalez’s specific remarks here and will share any feedback we receive.
An apparent nurse called Alex Kim recently posted on Instagram that he was offered close to $10,000 for one week’s work but decided not to accept the contract out of solidarity with the permanent nurses on strike in New York City.
NURSES AT MONTEFIORE, Mt. Sinai, and New York Presbyterian hospital systems, who are also members of New York State Nurses Association union, continued their strike action in Manhattan and The Bronx on Day 2, Jan. 13, 2026. They are seen here outside Montefiore Medical Center in Norwood. Video by Síle Moloney
Meanwhile, Mt. Sinai released an updated statement earlier this week, as follows: “We are incredibly grateful to the Mount Sinai nurses who have continued to come to work and not participate in NYSNA’s strike. We had 20 percent of our scheduled nurses come to work on Monday and put our patients first, and so far today we have seen similar numbers, hundreds of nurses who have joined their teams at the bedside. It is a credit to our entire system that we were prepared to withstand this disruption and continue to be there for New Yorkers in need.”
The statement continued, “Unfortunately, NYSNA has yet to provide an offer that could be considered reasonable, instead sticking to proposals that would cost $1.6 billion over three years just at The Mount Sinai Hospital, raising average nurse pay to close to $250,000, which is before factoring in the contributions we make to benefits.”
The statement concluded, “We have now committed significant additional funds to maintain our qualified and specialized agency nurses so that we can continue to be prepared to provide safe patient care at least through next week as the strike continues.”
On Day 3 of the strike on Wednesday, Jan. 14, Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, Mount Sinai Health System CEO, said he wanted to again share his deepest gratitude to the thousands of people across the hospital system who he said worked “so hard” to prepare for the strike. “I’ve spent a lot of time in all three of our affected hospitals over the last few days and am happy to report that our hospitals are running smoothly,” he said.
Carr continued, saying, “On Monday, we saw 20 percent of our scheduled NYSNA nurses decide not to participate in NYSNA’s strike, and yesterday we saw similar numbers, hundreds of nurses joining their teams at the bedside. I remain grateful to our nurses who have come to work, to the traveling nurses who came to help us, to nursing leaders who have been working around the clock, and to the many other individuals who are working incredibly hard to make up for their absent colleagues. We have continued to provide extraordinary care at all three hospitals. Yesterday I visited a number of teams across the Health System, and although we aren’t yet at full capacity, you can feel the tempo accelerating.”
Photo by Síle Moloney
Carr said the goal continued to be an agreement that balanced what he described as “the amazing contributions of our nurses with the long-term financial realities.” He said that it was unfortunate no progress had been made over the last two days. “To support ongoing safe operations, we’ve now extended our nonrefundable contract to ensure we have a workforce willing to provide care to our patients,” he said.
He continued, “This investment consumes limited resources that I would have preferred to direct to our nurses. Our negotiators are ready when NYSNA is ready to bargain, and will continue to follow the lead of the mediators to help us reach a deal. As I’ve said before, it is my responsibility to reach an agreement that benefits our nurses without limiting our ability to invest in the whole of our workforce or compromising our mission.”
He went on to say that he had been been made aware “that NYSNA is bullying and intimidating our nurses who have come to work.” He said this was “incredibly destructive to the collaborative culture that makes health care special and Mount Sinai great.” He concluded, “Our nurses deserve better, and we will continue to provide resources to protect our nurses from this sort of behavior. I hope we will be back at the negotiating table working towards a resolution soon, and will keep you updated.”
On Day 5 of the strike, Friday, Jan. 16, Carr said the mediators at The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Morningside asked both parties (nurses and management) to reconvene at the bargaining table, and that they were due to meet Friday.
“While we continue to work toward a deal, we also continue to make progress toward getting our hospitals operating at full capacity,” he said. “We have extended our contracts for agency nurses to ensure we have a workforce willing to provide care to our patients. We are onboarding an additional complement of agency nurses focused on specialty areas so that we can rapidly bring our scheduled surgical volumes back to normal.”
Photo by Síle Moloney
Carr said he visited some of Mount Sinai’s teams from Finance and Digital and Technology Partners on Thursday, Jan. 15. “I plan to spend some time with our amazing Human Resources team today,” he said. “These teams have worked incredibly hard to rapidly onboard a large number of new employees over the last few weeks, and although much of their work may not always be visible on the front lines, they are incredibly important to our mission.”
The CEO thanked everyone at the bedside and behind the scenes for what he said was “the amazing work” adding, “Our patients and your colleagues thank you. ”
In response to the comments by Mt. Sinai on allegations of intimidation, NYSNA responded on Saturday, saying as a union, NYSNA nurses know a lot about intimidation, alleging they have faced some of the most extreme forms of intimidation and union-busting. The union alleged that just hours before the strike began, in attempts to scare nurses from striking, three labor and delivery nurses, two of whom had just, months ago, returned from maternity leave, were unlawfully terminated.
They went on to say that NYSNA has seen no evidence of intimidation on the picket line, and though they allege travel nurses were working under conditions the hospital never offered permanent nurses in the form of safer staffing and much higher pay, they said they are extremely grateful that their patients are being cared for.
“Mount Sinai’s documented bullying, intimidation and harassment of over a dozen frontline nurses leading up to the strike demonstrates a failure of leadership,” NYSNA said. “We urge CEO Dr. Carr to stop the baseless accusations and come back to the bargaining table to settle a fair contract with the nurses who are the backbone of Mount Sinai Hospital.”
They added, “Let us get back to the bedside! Let’s settle a fair contract!” Norwood News has reached back out to Mt. Sinai for comment.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.