Montefiore nurses continue to show strong presence at picket lines in the Bronx as the strike enters its eighth day, speaking out against the hospital system as management continues to publicly slam union nurses.
Nearly 100 nurses and supporters gathered at Montefiore’s Jack D. Weiler Campus on Eastchester Road, marching with picket signs, noisemakers and whistles.
While there have been no further negotiations between Montefiore Hospital System management and the nurses, who are represented by the New York State Nurses Association, the nurses continue to fight for their contract.
Among the key sticking points, outlined by NYSNA in a statement, are safe staffing, protections from workplace violence and no cuts to healthcare for its nurses.
“We are on strike for patient and nurse safety,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in the statement.
“We won’t stand by as hospitals like Montefiore invest in White Plains while disinvesting in Bronx patients, only further exacerbating health inequities. Our patients can’t get the safe quality care they need when there aren’t enough nurses at the bedside, when we don’t have protections from violence in our hospitals, or when nurses can’t access their own healthcare to stay well on the job.”
Montefiore, which operates dozens of locations in the Bronx, snapped back at the nurses, claiming their contract demands could not be met by the hospital.
“Until they can back away from their reckless and dangerous $3.6 billion demands, progress overall will not be possible,” said a Montefiore spokesperson in an email to the Bronx Times. “In the meantime, we continue to provide the world-class care our communities deserve.”
Montefiore’s net profits have consistently increased each year since 2011, and its Moses Campus is the 5th highest earning hospital in the state as of February 2025, according to Definitive Healthcare.
However, it has refused to bargain with NYSNA to meet their demands despite the fact that seven safety-net hospitals — with significantly less profits — reached tentative agreements with the union on Jan. 8.
Workplace violence protections
Hospital management sent letters to NYSNA nurses on Dec. 31 claiming it already had a plan in place to prevent workplace violence and provide supplies and a course of action in case of an emergency that threatened worker or patient safety.
The letter stated that the hospital would provide “wearable badges to enable staff to activate an alert with three rapid presses,” as well as real-time signals and bluetooth and geolocation technology for precise location tracking.
It said there are “advanced screening systems at main entrances and walk-in entrances enhanced by the presence of armed members of the New York Police Department, as well as additional de-escalation training for emergency department and inpatient behavioral health staff was deployed in 2025.
The letter also said the hospital would provide post-incident employee support, including medical and occupational healthcare, mental health resources and assistance filing police reports and obtaining orders of protection.
However, nurses told the Bronx Times that the hospital’s claims were inaccurate and failed to take into consideration the perspective of the nurses and medical staff. Nurses said not only is the hospital not following through on these plans, but they do not address the realities of working at the hospital that nurses face everyday.
Reba Miller, a nurse picketing at the Jack D. Weiler campus on Monday, said when safety complaints are filed, there is often no follow-up. She said while the hospital has great security staff, there’s only so much they can do without proper protocols and backup — especially when patients get violent.
Peter Mui, another nurse on the picket line, told the Bronx Times that the hospital keeps claiming it’s working on supplying panic buttons, but it continues to drag its feet in actually delivering on that promise.
He said there are metal detectors at entrances, but only one armed NYPD officer. “It’s truthfully not enough,” he said. “Anything could slip by.”
Mui recounted an experience he had about a month ago in which he says a patient got aggressive with him. While security did respond to the incident, Mui said personnel “didn’t do anything” but stand next to the patient’s bed.
The patient was eventually escorted out, Mui continued, but he re-entered the building through a different entrance. When he confronted the hospital’s security director, who he said was present for the incident, he asked “Where is the safety in that?”
Mui added the hospital’s safety plan proposal is not sufficient because it does not include paid time off in the event a nurse is injured during an altercation, nor does it offer PTO if the nurse needs to appear for a court date if they press charges against a perpetrator.
“We want something on the side where, if we’re injured, we can go for any court proceedings or doctor visits and we don’t have to use all our sick time,” Mui said.
Safe staffing and wages
Montefiore stated that the nurse turnover rate is outperforming the 90th percentile national benchmark and represents a 51% improvement since 2021.
“To put that into perspective, the national benchmark for nurse turnover in 2024 was 16.4% and Montefiore is currently at 6.8%,” a spokesperson from the hospital wrote in an email to the Bronx Times.
However, Kailey Croke, who has worked in the emergency department for a year and also joined the picket line on Monday, said these claims did not reflect her experience at the hospital.
“We have 12 patients each sometimes,” Croke said. “It’s just impossible to get everything done.”
Croke said the nurses were asking for additional staffing to help relieve nurses for breaks without pushing the burden on the other nurses still on duty, as well as on-call nurses to fill in on days any nurses call out sick.
Without these measures, Croke said she ends up caring for up to 15 patients at a time — an issue, NYSNA nurses said, that poses a safety risk to the patients themselves.
While the nurses initially won safer staffing in their previous contract, Reba Miller noted, it has not been enforced. One of the ways the hospital could achieve this, she continued, is by raising wages for new-hires. She said this is one of the main motivating factors for NYSNA’s wage increase demands.
“For a new nurse coming out of school — which Montefiore is trying to attract — they end up going places where they offer higher compensation,” Miller explained.
When the hospital struggles to find nurses, Miller said it strains the existing staff to perform additional work to compensate.
While Montefiore claimed that the nurses were demanding a 40% wage increase over the course of the three-year contract — which it said totalled $3.6 billion — nurses have since drafted an updated proposal that has lowered the wage increases to 30 percent over the course of three years — 8% per year for the first two years and 7% the last year.
They reiterated that their main concerns were about patient and staff safety and said NYSNA would continue to negotiate wages. However, the union said the hospital has yet to propose a counter-offer.
Working on the front lines
Montefiore President and CEO Philip Ozuah expressed frustration about the union’s decision to go on strike in a letter to colleagues on Jan. 12. “Today, NYSNA leadership called for a strike — and here we are again,” he wrote.
He then noted that he visited many units at Montefiore’s Moses, Weiler, Hutch and Wakefield campuses and shared a deep appreciation for the staff and the quality of care they deliver.
“It is inspiring and heartwarming to see how we have come even closer together to fulfill our mission,” Ozuah wrote.
“Patients are being cared for in a calm, compassionate and collegial atmosphere. Our Montefiore Einstein colleagues have rallied as a team to ensure the continued provision of the highest quality of care for all who seek us out at their most vulnerable. We have not canceled even one patient’s access to care.”
NYSNA nurses, on the other hand, said it’s discouraging watching the hospital systems publicly boast its reputation while shaming nurses for their contract demands. Nurses emphasized that they are the ones on the front lines doing the work.
“We do work in very difficult circumstances — it’s very busy and chaotic,” Miller said.
She said she believes management, leadership, nurses and healthcare workers are working toward the same goal — providing healthcare to the community — but management continues to ignore nurses’ contributions and requests.
“I think having this discourse between management and nurses, particularly when they’re on the front lines doing the work, is disrespectful and it makes it difficult for our colleagues,” she said.
Mui said it was “infuriating” watching the hospital spend money on travel nurses to fill in for striking nurses instead of granting NYSNA a fair contract. He claimed the travel nurses are not well trained and can’t provide the quality care the existing nurses provide on a daily basis.
“[Montefiore is] over here buying hospitals and putting money into these travel nurses and hiring agencies,” Mui said. “But when we ask them, management suddenly says they have no money. It’s a slap in the face to us.”
While the hospital continues to boast its public image by sending out statements about how much it cares about its staff and patients, Mui continued, the nurses show up to work in an understaffed and unsafe environment.
“We’re asking for what is right — things that can make it so we can do our job efficiently and give back to the community,” he said. “We’re the ones that have been loyal to the hospital, that have been taking care of the community… Bring the nurses back because they know we care about the community.”
Croke agreed that it was disheartening to watch hospital management publicly disrespect their contract demands, stressing how hard nurses work each and every day despite physically and emotionally demanding situations.
“We put our heart and soul into the work we do everyday,” she said.
“Yes, sometimes we have a hard shift. But we can’t stop. We can’t go off and cry or feel any emotion. We just gotta keep fighting and do what’s best for our patients.”
