INTERVIEW
Regional Labor Review (Spring/Summer 2026)
How 15,000 Nurses Struck NYC Hospitals for Weeks and Won: A Conversation with NYSNA Activist Beth Loudin By Gregory DeFreitas
In the first two frigid months of 2026, 15,000 nurses marched picket lines in the largest nursing strike in New York City history. Members of the NY State Nurses’ Association (NYSNA) had fought for months to bring management to the bargaining table at three huge private hospital systems: Montefiore, Mount Sinai and NY Presbyterian/Columbia (NYP). Chief among several major issues were improved nurse-to-patient staffing ratios to cut overcrowding and defuse sometimes violent ER patient-staff interactions and stronger layoff protections. After a three-day strike in 2023, the hospitals’ management quickly conceded to higher staffing ratios and an enforcement mechanism in which arbitrators could fine hospitals guilty of sub-par ratios. As a result, for example, since early 2024 arbitrators have forced Mt. Sinai to pay its nurses over $6 million in fines. 1 The hospitals protested these increased costs and took steps in 2025 to better withstand another, possibly longer strike. An important aid in their efforts came from NY Governor Kathy Hochul (Dem) who signed executive orders that allowed the hospitals to temporarily replace strikers with high-paid “travel nurses.” After five weeks on the picket lines, Montefiore and Mt. Sinai nurses voted on February 11 to approve a mediator’s proposed new contract and return to work (on Feb. 14). Their new 3-year contracts included 12% pay hikes and safeguarded health insurance and pension benefits. Since it was not an industry-wide “master contract” (though union negotiators tried to coordinate strategy across the three hospitals), NY Presbyterian’s union executive committee refused to advise an end to their strike until a new contract included stronger language on layoff protections and expedited enforcement of penalties for hospital understaffing. One week later, with some progress on those demands in hand (along with the pay and benefits wins of the other hospitals), NYP workers voted to end their strike. Beth Loudin, a neonatal nurse at NY Presbyterian, is a rank-and-file activist who became a leading member of its union executive committee. In early June, Gregory DeFreitas spoke with her about the historic strike.