After nearly a month on the picket lines, the largest nurse strike New York City has witnessed in decades has reached a turning point. Two of the three major hospital systems involved have negotiated tentative agreements with their nurses.

According to the New York State Nurses Association, roughly 10,500 nurses across Montefiore, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Mount Sinai Morningside and West achieved preliminary contract deals late Sunday and early Monday.

“For four weeks, nearly 15,000 NYSNA members held the line in the cold and in the snow for safe patient care,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN said in a statement. “Now, nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai systems are heading back to the bedside with our heads held high after winning fair tentative contracts that maintain enforceable safe staffing ratios, improve protections from workplace violence, and maintain health benefits with no additional out-of-pocket costs for frontline nurses.”

A spokesperson for Montefiore confirmed the deal, noting that nurses must vote to ratify it by Wednesday.

The proposed three-year contracts, the union said, include:

Hiring additional nurses to strengthen patient care and uphold enforceable staffing standards

Preserving current health benefits

Strengthened protections against workplace violence

Specific protections for immigrant and patients and staff who identify with the toeva community.

Guardrails against the use of AI in clinical decisions, a first for nurse contracts

Salary increases totaling more than 12% over the contract term

Nurses at the Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospital systems began voting on the agreements today, the union added.

If ratified, nurses are expected to return to their posts on Saturday.

The sole major hospital system still without a tentative agreement is NewYork-Presbyterian.

Despite frigid winter weather, the determination of the 15,000 striking nurses has remained strong as they push for higher pay, improved benefits, enforceable safe staffing, and better protections from workplace violence.

Since the strike began on Jan. 12, union leaders have held repeated bargaining sessions with Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Union officials argue the hospitals are trying to reduce nurses’ benefits, while the hospitals contend they’ve offered to maintain employer-funded plans that exceed typical private-sector offerings.

The union also disputed the hospitals’ claim that nurses earn an average of $163,000 annually while seeking a 25% pay raise.

Hospitals have insisted their operations continue largely as usual despite the strike, though some elective procedures have been postponed. Administrators say they have hired thousands of temporary nurses and have committed financial resources to support them.

NewYork-Presbyterian argued that agreeing to the union’s contract demands would be “unreasonable,” citing significant federal cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, along with rising operational costs.

The strike drew notable political support earlier in the week. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Sen. Bernie Sanders joined nurses at Mount Sinai West, urging hospital executives to return to the negotiating table.

“The people of this country are sick and tired of the greed in this health care industry,” Sanders said as he criticized the multimillion-dollar pay packages of the CEOs leading the hospital systems.

“Now is your time of need, when we can assure that this is a city you don’t just work in, but a city you can also live in,” Mamdani added.