(The Center Square) – Thousands of nurses at several major New York City medical centers striking amid stalled contract negotiations don’t have to “abandon their patients,” but rather their union, to avoid paying fines for continuing to work.
This is according to the National Right to Work Foundation, a nonprofit legal firm that represents disgruntled workers seeking constitutional protections from unions who released special legal notice for 15,000 nurses told to strike across the city.
On Jan. 12, the New York State Nurses Association, representing 15,000 unionized nurses at Mount Sinai, Montefiore and NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals, hit the picket lines shortly after 6 a.m. after union leaders say talks with hospital officials failed to make “meaningful progress” on core demands. Those range from improved pay and health care benefits to staffing levels and workplace violence protections.
“Unfortunately, greedy hospital executives have decided to put profits above safe patient care and force nurses out on strike when we would rather be at the bedsides of our patients,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a statement. “Hospital management refuses to address our most important issues – patient and nurse safety. It is shameful that the city’s richest hospitals refuse to continue healthcare benefits for frontline nurses, refuse to staff safely for our patients, and refuse to protect us from workplace violence. Nurses do not want to strike, but our bosses have forced us out on strike.”
The foundation says nurses who want to keep working should leave the union and any fines they may face for breaking the picket lines would be unconstitutional.
“Despite often-misleading claims by union officials, no employee can be required to be a member of a union,” the foundation said in its memo. “If an employee is not a member of a union, union officials have no power to fine or discipline him or her. In this way, employees have the right to rebuff union strike demands.”
Representatives for the medical centers say the union’s proposed salary and benefit packages would drive up hospital costs by billions of dollars in the coming years as they face financial pressures over cuts in Medicaid funding and other federal support.
“The planning and personnel costs required to responsibly run our hospitals for what we anticipate could be a long strike are substantial, but we are prepared to maintain these operations,” Brendan G. Car, Mount Sinai’s CEO, said in a statement Sunday night. “We have explained to NYSNA that given the extreme financial pressures facing health care, we have a fixed budget that can be used either for nurse wages and benefits or to prepare and operate during a strike.”
The union’s existing contract expired at the end of 2025 and both sides have been meeting to hammer out details of a new collective bargaining agreement. NYSNA’s bargaining teams say the union wants higher pay and safer working conditions for its members.
Chris Wade contributed to this report.
