How a nurses’ strike could slam NYC’s teetering health-care system in Mamdani’s first month

New York City faces the threat of a strike next month by the main nurses’ union, which is holding out for an insane set of wage hikes of 10% a year for the next three years.

That adds up to a net full pay increase of 33%, even as many public and private hospitals struggle to remain afloat. 

The New York State Nurses Association pretends a walkout is about ensuring “safe patient care” yet the demand risks pushing multiple hospitals into insolvency.

The strike would hit more than a dozen institutions, including Brooklyn Hospital Center, Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai and New York Presbyterian.

NYSNA refuses to budge from a salary demand even though it follows the huge 19.7% pay hike nurses won in 2022 on the heels of the pandemic.

Among the obvious risks:

*Brooklyn Hospital is on the verge of bankruptcy and is reportedly delinquent on its contributions to the fund that covers NYSNA members’ health care.

*Montefiore Medical Center reports that the union’s demands would cost it $1.2 billion — a 50% jump over the current contract.

*Mount Sinai says paying the 33% hike would require it to spend $3.59 billion over three years — nearly three times its current nurse-pay costs ($1.281 billion) — and hike the average nurse salary from $162,000 to $272,000 a year.

*New York Presbyterian execs worry that the wage and benefits proposals would cost it $2.7 billion over three years.

While not subject to the threatened strike against the private hospitals, the city’s public hospitals would be expected to follow the pattern set by the private institutions’ collective-bargaining agreement when the city’s nursing-union contract is up.

This follows the recent five-day walkout by 31,000 registered nurses and other health-care workers over similar demands on West Coast medical care giant Kaiser Permanente — where negotiations remain stalled.

With the state likely facing reductions in what it had planned to collect from Medicaid, hospital budgets are already uncertain; NYSNA’s over-the-top demands could destabilize the entire city health-care system.

Yet Gov. Kathy Hochul appears content to sit on the sidelines, while the potential crisis doesn’t even seem to be on Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s radar.

If some leader doesn’t step up to resolve the standoff soon, the new team at City Hall may find itself consumed by a crisis that upends all its plans for building the city a new future.