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By Guy Page
The nurses’ union for the University of Vermont Medical Center announced today it will go on strike July 12-16, if contract negotiations are unsuccessful. The current contract expires July 9.
In a statement issued today, the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (VFNHP) cites unfair labor practices and a lack of data transparency on the part of the hospital.
“The call to strike comes in protest of numerous unfair labor practices by UVMMC and a refusal by the hospital to provide transparency in its data acquisition on financial proposals,” the statement said. “VFNHP also believes that the hospital’s bargaining team is not actually a group that has been given decision making authority.
“All of our Union’s decision-makers have showed up every week to craft our proposals and communicate with our membership, unpaid, on top of all their work at the bedside,” said Deb Snell, President of VFNHP.
“The hospital pays people a lot of money to crunch their numbers, and they don’t have enough respect for their nurses to explain why they think it’s not worth it for the hospital to recruit, retain and ensure nurses can afford to live here.”
While the Union has moved significantly on most of their proposals, UVMMC’s bargaining team has not, the VFNHP said. The nurses scheduled two last-minute bargaining sessions, including a 10-hour session last Friday and a session Monday night in the hopes to avoid a strike, the statement claimed.
A UVMMC statement assured that “patients and families will continue to receive safe, high-quality care.” UVM Medical Center has put in motion plans to bring in professional external staff, and if needed, reschedule certain elective procedures, the hospital said.
Patients will be contacted by their provider if they will be impacted. As a Level I Trauma Center, the academic medical center provides life-saving critical care to our region, and Emergency Department, ICU, NICU, and other vital services will remain operational. Clinical and operational leaders will stand up a 24/7 incident command structure for the duration.
Hospital President Stephen Leffler acknowledged the high cost of living for nurses and patients alike.
“We know that the cost of living in Vermont, especially the Chittenden County area, is high,” Leffler continued. “But our patients are shouldering that burden too, and Vermonters cannot afford a more than $100 million contract, as proposed by the nurses’ union.”
UVM Medical Center current proposal:
- 20% wage increases over the three-year contract
- Increased additional special pay, differentials and benefits
- Addition of new “steps” for nurses – currently, nurses receive a 2% wage increase every year, as they move up a “step.” Nurses above Step 24 currently receive an annual 2% bonus, but it does not compound as a wage increase. Our proposal would create Steps 25-27, so that our longest-serving expert nurses can continue to grow their wages.
- Provisions for improved safety
- Proposal puts approximately $70 million toward nursing wages
The hospital also described the current VFNHP current proposal:
- 31% wage increases over the three-year contract
- Detail: 3% immediately on ratification; 10% on October 1, 2024; 6% on October 1, 2025; 6% on October 1, 2026; 2% annual step increases each year = 31%
- Cost is well above $100 million
UVM Medical Center has contracted with a nursing staffing agency to bring in contingency nurses to join teams throughout the hospital – both in its inpatient and outpatient settings.
Now that the hospital has been served with a 10-day strike notice, the hospital must begin significantly increasing payments to this firm. This includes spending funds that cannot be redistributed back to nurses or other staff in a contract. Clinical and operational leaders will coordinate operations through an incident command center for the duration of the strike.
Nurses at UVM Medical Center are represented by VFNHP. In April 2024, bargaining sessions began to negotiate a new three-year contract that extends into July 2027. The current contract expires July 9.
The hospital also provided a history of contract bargaining with the nurses’ union:
- 2018: Three-year agreement signed with 16% increases
- 2021: Both parties agree to one-year contract extension due to pressures of COVID-19, with 3.56% increase
- 2022: Two-year agreement signed with 20% increases
- 2024: Three-year agreement would run through 2027; hospital has proposed 20% increases
- Combined with the contract signed in July 2022, nurses would be receiving raises of 40% over the 4-year period between October 2022 and October 2026.
Content and phrasing for this story was sourced mostly from statements provided by UVMMC and the VFNHP.
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Categories: Health Care
First I would like to say that I know firsthand that the hospital doesn’t care about it’s workers and constantly employs unfair labor practices. This is true and should be changed.
A 40% increase in pay isn’t enough pay to stop from going on strike? What does this really say about our economy… That it really costs 40% more to live right now compared to 2019 and I agree with that. If not how greedy do you need to be while you wipe out families savings and bankrupt them onto the street?
Which one is it? You decided, I know what my grocery and rent bills look like… and I didn’t get a 40% raise.
As a retired nurse, thankfully, I have read this article objectively, taking both sides into consideration. The one item I also question is the 40% increase. My question to the nurses is “has the union been helpful for you?” Some “older” nurses will know why I’m asking.
I agree with you, but I did not get anywhere near a 40% increase. And at 76.5 years, my medical has gone up way over 40%. It is the democrats fault!
I know 1st hand the hospital DISRIMINATES against:
[1.] hiring older nurses (I believe due to their wages being higher than younger RN’s)
[2.] anyone RN who is not C19-injected
They would rather waste Vermont tax dollars on “Travel Nurses” than hire local nurses. I applied to over 30 RN positions the 1st year I lived here, and never once got a job offer. I have not one mark on my Nursing license and have loads of experience in several areas that UVMMC was hiring for.
I’ve had the best Training a Nurse could dream of; fresh out of school I worked at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital on a Cardiac Medical floor x 2 years (rated the top Hospital in the USA at the time; the home of ‘Primary Care Nursing’ ~ founded by BIH Director of Nursing. I also use to work at Boston City Hospital in the 90’s floating to Medical, Surgical, Orthopedic Floors. My experience was vast.
I also have 28 credits towards a Master’s in Nursing (from Simmons College in Boston) and have had my BSN from an ACEN & CCNE accredited School of Nursing at University of Rhode Island since 1983.
I relocated to Burlington, VT in December 2019, sure I would land a job at UVMMC after seeing they were short staffed & looking to hire ONLY BSN prepared RN’s in the future. I know for a FACT that all hospitals short staff their Nurses so they can increase their profit margin. It is physical & emotional abuse of their nurses to force them to do the work of 3 people. And, it increases the death statistics of patients when a hospital is short staffed.
I also learned that nurses have a high suicide rate across the nation; and the CDC keeps tracks of all suicide rates by professions …. EXCEPT NURSES .. (they hide the stress nurses are under to the PUBLIC) up there with Dentists, Psychiatrists, Teachers, Lawyers, Construction Workers, Social Workersw, Psychologists, and (due to the high level of stress, burnout & bullying that goes hand-in-hand with short staffing ratios)
(it was an “EXPERIMENTAL” mRNA gene therapy that did NOT prevent anyone from catching the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection, and did NOT prevent the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (if infected)
My apologies; my comment was submitted BEFORE I could EDIT
(CORRECTIONS made)
The Research Study (link below) showing Nurses are high risk of suicide due to the stressors of the job —
I also learned the CDC did, in fact, start to keep track of Nurses suicide rate after the article (BELOW) was published … https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/84275
Physician & Surgeon rates are extraordinarily high @ 319/100,000 : /
and Nurses high @ 181/100,000
~ the stress from a dysfunctional healthcare system ruled by a Profit-driven Health Insurance Industry — has Nothing to do with our HEALTH or the employees stuck in their abusive and dehumanizing business practices.
https://health.ucsd.edu/news/press-releases/2020-02-03-national-study-confirms-nurses-at-higher-risk-of-suicide/
PLEASE go to these sites for anyone who cares to learn more about the dangers of the experimental mRNA gene therapy injections being pushed …
And the injuries they are causing: autoimmune disorders, neurological disorders, turbo cancers (it decrease our T cell from functioning; it is being called VAIDS: vaccine-induced AIDS), cardiac issues – myocarditis, POTS, endocarditis & death:
https://www.RealNotRare.com and React19.org
Are you serious? No way we can get DECENT care without the nurses.
Who said ANYTHING about getting DECENT CARE without Nurses? Certainly not me. I said the exact opposite? Statistics show the % of patients dying while hospitalized rises when there is a shortage of Nursing staff.
Instead of paying staff nurses a better wage, hospital management teams will readily fill staffing shortages with travel nurses. Travel nurses seem to be available along with an associated higher cost.
It would be interesting to know just exactly who owns (and profits from) the travel nurse agencies. Could it be that some of those on the hospital management team are also personally profiting from revenue generated by the travel nurse agencies?
What I learned is, during COVID-19, the hospitals (UVMMC) get to use the added expense of. “Travel Nurses” as a tax write-off, and that was one incentive for them to use Travel Nurses, over RN’s available to work that lived locally. I can’t say for sure. But I did read that (I can not even recall the source).
Travel Nurses being used during a ‘pandemic’ made zero sense to me from an Infectious Disease / Public Health perspective.
Why would our government & hospitals promote the use of “Travel Nurses” to be tracking SARS-CoV-2 virus all across our nation, in & out of International Airports —during a pandemic ???
If the CDC was meant to reduce infection rates, they should have prohibited Frontline ICU Nurses from traveling (increasing exposure) … And, instead promoted better outpatient care (e.g., Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D3 & zinc) to keep mortality / infection rates down (like Uttar Pradesh did in India; selling Z-packs for US dollar equivalent of $2.65 in every store; decreasing mortality rate drastically by the Summer 2020).
I recall hearing the Long Term Care facilities in the Burlington area became infected from a “Travel Nurse” (where many of our elderly died) … The other strange thing is they did not require ‘Frontline’ ICU nurses, nor “Travel Nurses” working with C19 patients to quarantine for 14 days in between jobs. Nothing made sense.
There were many issues that seemed to just make infection rates worse; e.g., the CDC neglected to inform the Public they should get their Vitamin D levels up: by using sunlight, proper nutrition rich in D, and /or to take Vitamin D3 supplements, I believe was the biggest oversight. Instead they frightened everyone into staying home, indoors, away from sunlight.
As Mayo Clinic trained Pathologist, Dr. Ryan Cole taught us, “We’re in a pandemic of Vitamin D Deficiency” (no one could possibilty go into the patho-physiology of a deadly cytokine storm if they had mid-high serum Vitamin D levels) … Explaining why Diabetics, Obese & BIPOC were at such high risk (they all have low serum Vitamin D levels).
Why was life-saving healthcare teaching with-held ? Why were Travel Nurses … dealing with SARS-CoV-2 infected C19 diseased, paid big bucks (5k/week) and encouraged to travel all over the USA, going in & out of International Airports? SMH
Having had a couple of experiences in which I needed to be hospitalized, all I can say is that nurses are worth every penny and ought to receive everything they ask for.
And now, added to their already difficult job, they have the daily hazard of nut job patients who assault and abuse them.
In a tremendously difficult, stressful, dangerous, and thankless profession, without them, there would be no hospitals and no care. They do the heavy lifting—literally and figuratively—of all who find themselves in the hospital. They are as soldiers on the front lines. Give them what they need and ask for.
God bless them for their compassion, care, and commitment!
No disrespect to the nursing community. What do they expect working for a mega-State sponsored-corporation? How much do the administrators and directors earn over the nurses, the aides, the maintenance and support staff? Unless you’re sitting in the executive wing, you are a professional licensed pawn. As long as you carry the water for the corporation, you will remain an indebted serf used to commit crimes against humanity.
Every needle pushed into an arm, every pill dosed into a throat, every cut made by a surgeon, every radiation treatment, every insurance reimbursement, every Federal scamdemic dollar, every research grant, every wealthy elitists/eugenist trust fund grant, is the corporation making money off human misery. It not about health, it’s about making the wealthy more wealth. The colluding co-conspirators running the fraud of medical care has driven the industry into a chaotic mess of mass death and disabilities.
I empathize with nurses with a conscience (maybe a few doctors as well), but when working in an evil, corrupt system disquised as “healthcare,” don’t be shocked when you become a victim right along with the patients under your charge. Raise the standards personally and professionally. Bargain for basic human rights and justice over money.