New York City may be experiencing some of its coldest weather of the winter, with sub-zero temperatures biting fingers and nipping cheeks, but that hasn't prevented thousands of nurses from taking to the picket line for what is the largest nurses strike in the city's history.
Almost 15,000 nurses who work for three separate hospital systems have been on strike since 12 January, holding out for increased staffing, better safety in hospitals, and improved healthcare benefits. The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) has pointed to the giant pay packages that hospital CEOs have received, at a time when nurses say there are too few of them to adequately care for patients.
The strike has pulled support from Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, and Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist Vermont senator, both of whom joined striking nurses outside a Mount Sinai hospital on Tuesday.
"When we see a strike, people forget that that is not where workers want to be. The strike is an act of last resort. What workers want is to be back at work. This is about safe working conditions. This is about a fair contract. This is about dignity," Mamdani said.
"What this is in fact about is recognizing the worth of each and every nurse in this city."
Picket lines have been established outside Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals, representatives of whom were scheduled to return to negotiations with the NYSNA on Thursday at the urging of Mamdani and Kathy Hochul, the New York governor. The nurses have endured frigid temperatures dipping towards 19F (-7C) as Mamdani and Sanders spoke on Tuesday.
"The people of this country are sick and tired of the greed of the healthcare industry," Sanders said.
"They're tired of the drug companies ripping us off, the insurance companies ripping us off and hospital executives getting huge salaries. Don't tell me you can't provide a good nurse-staff [patient] ratio when you're paying your CEO at NewYork-Presbyterian $26m a year, the CEO at Montefiore $16m a year. Mount Sinai $5m a year."
Cecilia Barreto, who has been a nurse at Mount Sinai for two years, was watching from under a large coat as the pair spoke.
"It was a pretty awe inspiring moment," she said.
"Bernie Sanders is a big union champion. So to have learned about his life's work in school, and then to see him standing 15ft away from me, was an amazing experience. And to also see somebody like Mayor Mamdani come and support us since day one of the strike has been really, really inspiring, because it just lets us know that we have people in government who are working to help us get a fair contract."
Hospitals have spent millions of dollars on hiring thousands of temporary nurses to cover the strike, something Barreto, a 28-year-old from Queens, New York, said was "very disappointing".
"It's incredibly disheartening to have the hospitals be stalling on this because at the end of the day, striking is a last resort, and we want to be at the bedside. We want to be taking care of the patients," she said.
Mount Sinai has said the union is making "extreme economic demands", while a spokesperson for Montefiore said the union was making "reckless demands". The hospitals said union-registered nurses make an average of $165,000 a year at Montefiore, $162,000 at Mount Sinai, and $163,000 at NewYork-Presbyterian's Columbia University Irving medical center. Montefiore claimed the union's asks would raise the average to $220,000 in three years; Mount Sinai said the average there would reach $275,000.
Nurses say they have unmanageable workloads, and are asking for better security in the hospitals.
They also want better security measures in the workplace. The NYSNA has pointed to an incident in November when a man allegedly threatened to "shoot up" a Mount Sinai hospital before being killed by police. In another incident in early January, a man allegedly threatened staff with a sharp object before barricading himself in a Brooklyn hospital room. He was shot and killed by police.
"I'm one of countless nurses who are struggling, exhausted and increasingly afraid to come to work - the main reason is the safety in our hospitals. It's not an exaggeration, it's a daily reality. We're on strike because of the lack of safety. We have staffing shortages, and we have increased unprecedented levels of workplace violence," said Aretha Morgan, a nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian who has been practising for 34 years.
"The hospitals are attempting to tarnish our reputation as a respected profession; they are trying to portray us as being unreasonable and demanding when in reality we are just fighting for safe staffing, safe environments and the basic resources required to protect our patients."
Morgan added: "They need to come to the table in good faith, and let's talk about it, and let us get this done."