Document written for the February 2026 NY Presbyterian nurses strike.

Even though NYSNA and the hospitals seemed ready to call it a day, the nurses at NY Presbyterian bravely continue their strike. After the Presbyterian nurses’ bargaining committee rejected an agreement because it did not cover key demands, NYSNA forced a vote on it anyway to end the strike alongside the nurses of Montefiore and Mt. Sinai. This offer by the hospital administration refused to cover the issues of safe staffing and job security, and the union forcing through a vote on it represents an active attack on workers. Despite the union asking for workers to call off their picket ahead of the vote, the nurses at Presbyterian continued to show up at the picket line and ultimately rejected the deal.

This experience makes clear that the union and government are false friends of the nurses and the wider working class. NYSNA has shown itself capable of actively sabotaging the strike, undercutting the nurses’ demands for safe staffing by forcing a vote for the tentative agreement, trying to end the picket line which would only lead to the demobilization of the strike, and maintaining the sectoral division of workers. Indeed, the role of the unions today is to force a “least bad” deal onto the workers on behalf of the bosses. Every defeat inflicted onto the workers, the unions claim as a historic victory, like when NYSNA’s tentative agreement secured an 11% raise over three years (likely below inflation) instead of the over 30% raise as initially demanded.

Likewise, the government is bipartisan when it comes time to put down workers’ demands. Hochul isn’t the exception but the rule when she colludes with the hospital to continue the state of emergency allowing for out-of-state nurses into the hospitals during the strike. Even “pro-worker” politicians like Mamdani lends his support for the suppression of the nurses by endorsing Hochul through her eighth extension of the state of emergency. The role of our government is to protect the interests of the bosses, especially when the working class asserts its right to defend its standard of living.

The solution for the nurses and wider working class, who can never rely on the union or government to represent them, is to take the fight into their own hands. The nurses at Presbyterian have already done this when they rejected NYSNA’s demand to stop picketing, kicked the union out of their group chat, and then organized the strike until the agreement was rejected, even setting up their own mutual aid network for their struggling co-workers. The nurses were able to renew their demands for a better contract through their self-organization of the fight. Instead of giving the task of finishing negotiations back to the union which has shown itself incapable of fighting for safe staffing, NY Presbyterian nurses should use their self-organization and strength to take actual leadership of the strike by forming a strike committee outside of the union.

However, it is not enough for one section of workers to take up this struggle on their own. The capitalist attack on working and living conditions is universally felt by the working class. The things that the nurses on strike are struggling for- better pay, understaffing- these are all demands shared by the working class as a whole, by all its sectors. Workers can no longer fight for these demands in an isolated, separate manner when the bosses are united. If these separate sectors of the working class were to unite in their activities, they would have a much greater chance of success in securing their demands for ALL sectors. Then, the united working class will be able to fight not just for a decent standard of living, but for a new society no longer based on those who own capital versus those who have to sell their labor for a wage. This fight will have to be political, and the working class’s greatest weapon will be its political party that can direct each individual fight to the wider goal of revolution.