Labor and patient rights are under attack in New York City.

We write as nurse leaders at three of the biggest hospitals in the city: Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and New York-Presbyterian. For months during contract negotiations between the hospitals and our union, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), management has stonewalled us on our demands for safe staffing, an end to workplace violence, and maintaining our current health care and benefits. Since bargaining started in September, management has refused to negotiate on our core demands. And even while we have been on strike, they have broken promises they made to us to resume negotiations, showing open contempt for the collective bargaining process.

On January 12, 15,000 of us had enough and launched the largest nurses strike in our city’s history. It is also the biggest strike in New York City in over two decades. Our strike is now in its third week.

This strike is about much more than nurses’ pay or working conditions. It is also fundamentally about ensuring safe, high-quality medical care for our patients. It’s about making sure that nurses aren’t stretched thin by being made to care for too many patients at any given time. This strike is about overcrowded emergency rooms that endanger patient care and create the conditions for violence. It’s about saying patients shouldn’t be admitted to hallways, where their care and dignity is disregarded. It’s about fixing the problem of dangerous short-staffing that burns out nurses and prevents us from giving all patients the time and care that they deserve.

This strike is also about the future of the labor movement in New York City and the United States. The fact that management feels it can completely ignore our demands is a testament to how emboldened employers are right now under Donald Trump’s viciously anti-labor administration. Hospital CEOs are being empowered by Trump’s attacks on the National Labor Relations Board, on federal workers’ unions, and on the rights of immigrant workers — attacks that have culminated in recent weeks in a violent authoritarian crackdown in Minneapolis, where federal immigration agents executed fellow ICU nurse Alex Pretti over the weekend.

We believe that our strike may be a harbinger for other labor fights to come in all sectors, in New York and beyond. The hospitals are trying to undermine NYSNA, one of the largest and most powerful unions in the city; other employers are no doubt watching and hoping they succeed so they can use the example to intimidate their own workers.

Nurses will not let this stand.

On Wednesday, January 21, we finally met with management after hearing that they promised Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani that they were willing to actually negotiate. To our profound disappointment, they weren’t, and we wasted a week. As of yesterday, we are again back at the table, but all 15,000 of us will keep holding the line in freezing temperatures and continue to organize other escalation plans to force the employers to play ball. It shouldn’t have to be this way, but this is what corporate greed in health care looks like.

Mayor Mamdani has broken with precedent and defied criticism to join our picket line and support our demands publicly. We commend him and our other elected officials who have done so. But our fight is far from over. Nurses are energized and committed to staying out on the picket line for as long as it takes for our patients, and we hope the public and our elected leaders will join us in standing up for health care worker dignity and patient care.

That means showing up with us on the picket lines, day in and day out. We’ve already received strong support from the community, including the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. And many of our rank-and-file siblings from other unions have been joining us — including doctors with the Committee of Interns and Residents, who showed up at the picket lines earlier this week — and we hope that organized labor continues to boost our fight and turn out even more members to the pickets. We’ve also appreciated the support we’ve received from pro-worker organizations like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). But we can always use more of that energy in this crucial moment.

The mayor has a key role to play. Mamdani ran and was elected as a movement candidate who wanted to empower the working people of New York. And he has time and again encouraged supporters to remain active and organize to fight for a better city. Now is a pivotal moment to reiterate that call. In addition to continuing to show up on the picket lines himself and denounce hospital CEO greed, Mayor Mamdani can escalate pressure on the hospitals by using his office and calling on the historic coalition that elected him to mobilize as many people as possible to join our pickets.

With the full backing of the mayor, our fellow unionists, and effective grassroots organizations like DSA and Our Time, we can negotiate the contracts that health care workers, our patients, and our communities deserve. A victory here is key to building a city that works for all of us.