NEW YORK (AP) — Nurses and two major hospital systems in New York City have reached a deal to end a nearly monthlong strike over staffing levels, workplace safety, health insurance and other issues.
The tentative agreement announced Monday by the nurses' union involves the Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospital systems. Nurses remain on strike at NewYork Presbyterian.
The walkout began Jan. 12, prompting the hospitals to scramble to hire legions of temporary nurses to fill in during a demanding flu season.
The union said members at Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospitals will vote this week on whether to ratify the contracts and return to work.
The three-year deal affects roughly 10,500 of the some 15,000 nurses on strike at some of the city’s biggest private, nonprofit hospitals.
“For four weeks, nearly 15,000 NYSNA members held the line in the cold and in the snow for safe patient care,” Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, said in a statement. “Now, nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems are heading back to the bedside with our heads held high.”
The nurses union said the tentative agreement calls for a 12% pay raise over the life of the contract, as well as maintains nurses' health benefits with no additional out-of-pocket costs.
In addition, the proposed pact includes new protections against workplace violence, including specific protections for transgender and immigrant nurses and patients, as well as provisions addressing artificial intelligence in hospitals, the union said.
Nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospitals will vote to ratify their contracts starting Monday, the union said. If the tentative contract agreements are ratified, nurses will return to work on Saturday.
Mount Sinai said it would comment later on the deal while a Montefiore spokesperson confirmed its nurses will be voting Monday through Wednesday but declined to comment further.
Meanwhile, NewYork-Presbyterian said it agreed over the weekend to a proposal presented by mediators that includes pay raises, preserves nurses’ pensions, maintains their health benefits and increases staffing levels. The union reiterated that the strike remains in effect at NewYork-Presbyterian hospitals.
The affected hospitals have insisted their operations are running smoothly during the walkout, with organ transplants, cardiac surgeries and other complex procedures largely uninterrupted. Many of the medical centers, however, canceled scheduled surgeries, transferred some patients and discharged others ahead of the strike.
The striking nurses priorities vary by hospital, but staffing has generally been a central issue. Nurses complained of being overworked, saying the hospitals held out for weeks on committing to more manageable patient loads. The union said Monday that the tentative agreements would increase staffing and otherwise address those concerns.
The hospitals and nurses also have been at odds over benefits, and the union sought workplace security upgrades and restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence. Hospital staffers’ longstanding security concerns flared into public view when a gunman entered Mount Sinai in November and a man holed up in a Brooklyn hospital with a sharp object last month. Police killed both men.
The hospitals said the union’s demands were exorbitant. They say unionized nurses’ salaries already average $162,000 to $165,000 a year, not including benefits.
The nurses and their political allies, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, countered that top hospital executives make millions of dollars a year.
Not every hospital in the three health care systems was affected by the strike, nor were any city-run public hospitals. Other private hospitals reached last-minute deals with the union.
Nurses staged a three-day strike in 2023 in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems. They ultimately inked contracts that raised pay 19% over three years and sought to make staffing improvements enforceable by allowing for extra pay if nurses worked short-handed.
Striking nurses walk a picket line outside NewYork Presbyterian Hospital in New York, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Striking nurses walk a picket line outside NewYork Presbyterian Hospital, in New York, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed Monday to fight for his job as revelations about the relationship between the former U.K. ambassador to Washington and Jeffrey Epstein spiraled into a full-blown crisis for his 19-month-old government.
The prime minister's authority with his own Labour Party has been battered by fallout from the publication of files related to Epstein — a man he never met and whose sexual misconduct has not implicated Starmer.
Some lawmakers in Starmer's center-left Labour Party have called on him to resign for his judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson to the high-profile diplomatic post in 2024 despite his ties to the convicted sex offender. The leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, joined those calls Monday, saying “there have been too many mistakes" and "the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”
Starmer’s chief of staff and his communications director have also quit in quick succession. But Starmer insisted he will not step down.
"Every fight I have ever been in, I've won," he told Labour lawmakers at a meeting in Parliament.
“I'm not prepared to walk away from my mandate and my responsibility to my country,” he added.
After Sarwar spoke, senior colleagues — including those tipped as potential challengers — rallied to support Starmer. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy wrote on X: "We should let nothing distract us from our mission to change Britain and we support the Prime Minister in doing that."
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper posted: "At this crucial time for the world, we need his leadership not just at home but on the global stage." Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, a potential successor, said Starmer “has my full support.”
Supportive lawmakers said Starmer won over a restive crowd when he addressed scores of Labour members of Parliament Monday evening behind closed doors.
“Of course, there were tough moments,” legislator Chris Curtis said. “But he really brought the room round.”
Starmer fired Mandelson last September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor. Critics say Starmer should have known better than to appoint Mandelson in the first place. The 72-year-old Labour politician is a contentious figure whose career has been tarnished with scandals over money or ethics.
A new trove of Epstein files released by authorities in the United States last week revealed more details about the relationship and put new pressure on Starmer.
Starmer apologized last week to Epstein's victims and said he was sorry for “having believed Mandelson’s lies.”
He promised to release documentation related to Mandelson’s appointment, which the government says will show that Mandelson misled officials about his ties to Epstein. But publication of the documents could be weeks away. They must be vetted on national security grounds and for potential conflicts with a police investigation.
Police are investigating Mandelson for potential misconduct in public office over documents suggesting he passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. The offense carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Mandelson has not been arrested or charged, and he does not face any allegations of sexual misconduct.
Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, took the fall for the decision to give Mandelson the job by quitting on Sunday. He said he “advised the prime minister to make that appointment, and I take full responsibility for that advice.”
McSweeney has been Starmer’s most important aide since he became Labour leader in 2020 and is considered a key architect of Labour’s landslide July 2024 election victory. But some in the party blame him for a series of missteps since then.
Some Labour officials hope that his departure will buy the prime minister time to rebuild trust with the party and the country.
Senior lawmaker Emily Thornberry said McSweeney had become a “divisive figure” and his departure brought the opportunity for a reset.
She said Starmer is “a good leader in that he is strong and clear. I think that he needs to step up a bit more than he has.”
Others say McSweeney's departure leaves Starmer weak and isolated.
Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer “has made bad decision after bad decision” and "his position now is untenable.”
Since winning office, Starmer has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living. He pledged a return to honest government after 14 years of scandal-tarred Conservative rule, but has been beset by missteps and U-turns over welfare cuts and other unpopular policies.
Labour consistently lags behind the hard-right Reform UK party in opinion polls, and its failure to improve had sparked talk of a leadership challenge, even before the Mandelson revelations.
Under Britain’s parliamentary system, prime ministers can change without the need for a national election. If Starmer is challenged or resigns, it will trigger an election for the Labour leadership. The winner would become prime minister.
The Conservatives went through three prime ministers between national elections in 2019 and 2024, including Liz Truss, who lasted just 49 days in office.
Starmer was elected on a promise to end the political chaos that roiled the Conservatives’ final years in power.
Labour lawmaker Clive Efford said Starmer’s critics should “be careful what you wish for.”
“I don’t think people took to the changes in prime minister when the Tories were in power," he told the BBC. “It didn't do them any good.”
The front door of 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
FILE - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, file)
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with members of the audience after delivering a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
