A union representing nurses at Porter Medical Center says the hospital violated the law by retaliating against its members for union activities and negotiating in bad faith.
The Porter Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals filed 11 unfair labor practice charges against the Middlebury hospital with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, according to its president.
The Vermont Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers organized more than 140 nurses into a union in 2013. The union approved its first contract with the hospital in December 2014.
Union President Alice Leo said that Porter management had asked nurses to remove union pins, a violation of labor law. In addition, the recent contract, which is in effect until September 2017, includes a letter of understanding that the structure of a professional development program would be negotiated between the two sides.
The other charges accuse Porter management of canceling bargaining sessions on short notice, in one instance just two hours before a scheduled meeting, according to Leo.
“You can’t negotiate in good faith if you don’t show up,” she said.
The hospital made a “unilateral” decision that its clinical advancement program would be uncompensated, Leo said, despite the contract’s letter of agreement saying compensation for the program would be negotiated.
“We need to put patients first. Attracting and retaining a quality nursing staff is put at risk when Porter management continues to violate the law and basic principles of respect,” Leo said in a statement, adding that the union reached out to Porter CEO Lynn Boggs and the Porter Board of Directors, “but they have been unwilling to meet to discuss our concerns around patient safety,” according to Leo.
Porter Medical Center spokesman Ron Hallman provided the following statement in response to an inquiry from VTDigger: “There is an established, legally required and mutually agreed upon process in our contract with the union for addressing and resolving issues between the union and our organization which we are following.”
The hospital will also stop offering health insurance to all its part-time workers, including nurses, starting in 2016, according to Leo. That’s not part of the charges filed with the NLRB, but is indicative of the “disrespectful behavior and attitude toward nurses,” Leo said.
