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‘NO SHORTAGE OF WEALTH’: MAMDANI, OTHER DEMOCRATS CHIDE NYC
HOSPITAL EXECUTIVES OVER NURSES’ STRIKE  
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Maya Kaufman
January 13, 2026
Politico
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_ The NYC mayor said the historic strike is about “who deserves to
benefit from this system.” _

NYSNA nurses picket outside New York-Presbyterian's Columbia
University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan., Ed Reed/Mayoral
Photography Office

 

NEW YORK — Politicians are piling on criticism of New York City
hospitals as executives scramble to weather a historic nurses strike.

Nearly 15,000 nurses walked out Monday at some of the city’s largest
private hospitals — including Montefiore Medical Center and multiple
New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System locations —
after months of stalled negotiations over pay raises, health insurance
coverage and understaffing penalties.

The New York State Nurses Association and a host of influential
political allies, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, are laying the blame
at hospital executives’ feet.

 

As the nurses lambast some of the city’s most well-off hospitals for
crying poverty, the strike is quickly becoming a proxy war for broader
discontent over the U.S. health care system. Mamdani, who catapulted
into City Hall on a platform of making New York City more affordable,
said the strike raises fundamental questions about who benefits from
the country’s complicated, costly and porous health care system.

“There is no shortage of wealth in the health care industry,
especially so at the three privately operated hospital groups at which
nurses are striking,” Mamdani said Monday at the picket line outside
New York-Presbyterian’s upper Manhattan hospital campus. “But for
too many of the 15,000 NYSNA nurses who are on strike, they are not
able to make their ends meet.”

Mamdani’s framing aligns with the union’s strategy of focusing on
hospital executives’ seven- and eight-figure pay packages throughout
its contract campaign. The union launched a website called “NYC
Hospital Greed [[link removed]]” to highlight the
substantial sums going to hospital leaders, including Montefiore CEO
Philip Ozuah’s $16.4 million compensation package from 2023, and
projects like Mount Sinai’s $100 million artificial intelligence
center.

The nurses union endorsed Mamdani shortly after his Democratic primary
win in June.

Hospital representatives insist the union’s demands would cost them
billions of dollars over the next three years, which they cannot
afford due to massive health care cuts in President Donald Trump’s
One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The federal tax-and-spending law will cost
New York hospitals billions of dollars
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annually due to funding cuts and increases in uncompensated care for
newly uninsured patients, according to industry lobbyists.

“I welcome the opportunity to sit down with Mayor Mamdani to discuss
in detail the financial condition of New York’s hospitals, including
the severe federal cuts they’re facing,” Kenneth Raske, president
of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said in a statement.

Hospital negotiators have invoked Trump’s megalaw as they rebuff the
union’s demands, arguing they can only afford increases of about
$4,500 annually to nurses’ total compensation, which includes health
benefits.

But the union’s populist arguments have gained momentum since some
of the same nurses went on strike in 2023. With Mamdani’s upset
victory in last year’s mayoral race, affordability became the word
of the year
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“New York’s private healthcare CEOs pocket millions in salaries
while our nurses on the frontlines are overworked and underpaid,”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes multiple
Montefiore hospitals, wrote in a social media post last week. “Our
communities and nurses deserve better.”

That dichotomy was underscored Monday during a union press conference
down the block from the construction site of a new medical tower for
New York-Presbyterian. At an estimated $1.2 billion, the 16-story
complex is one of the most expensive hospital projects
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in New York City in recent years, according to_ Crain’s New York_.

The three health systems have already spent over $100 million to
prepare for a strike by hiring temporary nurses, according to the
Greater New York Hospital Association. A Mount Sinai spokesperson said
the health system has so far brought in 1,400 of them. In a report
this week to bondholders, New York-Presbyterian reported spending $60
million on preparations.

The New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai health systems are each
sitting on billions of dollars in net assets, while Montefiore has
hundreds of millions of dollars in net assets that can technically be
used as leaders see fit, according to their most recent financial
disclosures.

“If these hospitals have money to hire scabs, then they’ve got
money and resources to address the needs of these nurses,” state
Attorney General Letitia James said during the press conference.

Mamdani’s predecessor took a comparatively milquetoast approach when
nurses at some of the same hospitals went on strike in 2023.
Then-Mayor Eric Adams called himself a “strong supporter of our
nurses” and urged hospitals to “do what’s right to ensure these
nurses get the just compensation that they deserve” in two radio
interviews. But unlike Mamdani, he refrained from directly criticizing
the hospitals involved.

That was then — when the Covid-19 pandemic and its images of
overwhelmed hospitals were still a relatively recent memory. The
current strike is unfolding as millions of Americans stand to lose
low-cost health insurance due to Trump’s Medicaid cuts and
congressional Republicans’ decision not to extend enhanced subsidies
for Affordable Care Act plans.

Affordable health insurance coverage has been a key sticking point in
the contract talks, with hospital negotiators pushing for cost-sharing
increases and cuts to the nurses’ prescription drug benefits to
reduce costs. The union’s benefits fund covers nearly 18,000 members
and 22,000 dependents; that does not include Montefiore nurses, who
are covered by the health system’s plan.

Spokespeople for Montefiore, Mount Sinai and New York-Presbyterian
said the union’s demands are “extreme” and “reckless” in the
face of “the challenging realities of today’s health care
environment.” New York-Presbyterian laid off 2 percent of its
workforce last year, or about 1,000 employees, due to “current
macroeconomic realities.”

The three health systems have not publicly shared their own estimates
of the impact of the cuts, which will roll out over the three-year
term of the nurses’ eventual agreements. The Greater New York
Hospital Association is working on a regional analysis of the cuts’
impact, but a spokesperson said it is not yet complete.

Union leaders argue the hospitals are cherrypicking numbers to make
their demands look unreasonable. Mount Sinai, for example, has said
its nurses earn $162,000 on average and would take home an average of
$250,000 by the third year of the contract under the union’s latest
proposal. The current base pay for a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital
starts at just under $122,000 and increases based on title and years
of experience, according to the union’s recently expired contract.
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NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane said the cost of the nurses’
demands is driven in part by their own employers. Hospital services
are the leading driver of health care spending
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nationally due to the high price of care, and New York-Presbyterian
and Montefiore hospitals are among the most expensive in New York City
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data shows.

“They’re complaining about the cost of this health care plan when
a lot of that money that they pay for the plan goes right back in
their coffers,” Kane said. “It’s ridiculous.”

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* New York City Nurses Strike; Montefiore
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* New York State Nurses Association
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