Mount Sinai ‘Unlawfully' Fired Three Nurses On Eve Of Strike, Union Says

By Claudia Irizarry Aponte, The City

Jan. 14, 2026

Mount Sinai Hospital fired three nurses via voicemail message on the eve of a massive ongoing strike, a move that amounts to illegal retaliation and intimidation, the New York State Nurses Association said on Tuesday.

The three nurses worked in the labor and delivery unit, which has experienced “aggressive anti-union activity,” including disciplining nurses who attended a union meeting last year, the union said.

Hundreds of nurses and supporters gathered at a Tuesday afternoon press conference at the Mount Sinai picket line on Madison Avenue to call attention to the firings.

Two of the fired nurses, Berina Selimovic and Liliana Prestia, issued a joint statement. “What management did is pure intimidation,” they said on Tuesday. “Our unfair terminations were Mount Sinai’s attempts to scare other nurses and keep them from joining the strike line.”

Mount Sinai terminated the nurses because they allegedly interfered with pre-strike emergency preparedness training, including by hiding supplies, according to a statement from the hospital.

In an interview with THE CITY, Selimovic and Prestia said the hospital’s allegations that they hid supplies are false and came from a travel nurse temporarily hired ahead of the strike. “Basically, our managers believed a travel nurse over us,” Selimovic said.

She and Prestia also said the hospital tried to coerce them to train the temporary nurses; they refused, which their union contract gives them the right to do, they noted.

“I feel like they’re just trying to scare us. We’re not scared,” Selimovic said. “We will fight this because we’re not in the wrong.”

Slimovic, Prestia and Jennifer Pitre — the third nurse who was fired — had never been formally disciplined by Mount Sinai prior to their termination, according to a union source.

NYSNA has already filed a formal charge against the hospital with the U.S. labor board over what it described as “illegal” firings, according to a union source.

Striking Mt. Sinai nurses hold a picket line along Madison Avenue, Jan. 13, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Approximately 15,000 nurses across three major private hospital systems — Mount Sinai, NewYork-Presbyterian and Montefiore — walked off the job in the early hours of Monday morning in what the union has described as the largest strike of its kind in New York City history.

The nurses went on strike after the union and management failed to reach agreements on health care benefits, staffing levels and workplace violence protections. Hospital management say they can’t afford to meet the nurses’ demands, but the union claims the hospitals have jointly spent more than $100 million in pay and lodging for thousands of temporary nurses to cover for those who are on strike.

Nancy Hagans, the union president, shot back at management’s claims that the raises the union are asking for are too high, and accused them of misrepresenting the nurses’ demands at the bargaining table.

“It’s not true,” she said in response to a statement from a Montefiore executive claiming that NYSNA was asking for 40% wage increases. “This is not about wages — this is about patient care and nurses’ safety.”

In spite of the strike, approximately 20% of Mount Sinai nursing staff showed up to work on Monday, the hospital claims.

This is not the first time the union has accused Mount Sinai of unlawfully retaliating against union activists. Last month, NYSNA served Mount Sinai with a formal complaint to the federal National Labor Relations Board after management disciplined several nurses who spoke to the media about an attempted shooting at the hospital.

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.