[B]URLINGTON — University of Vermont Medical Center nurses have authorized a two-day strike, but they’re not prepared to walk off the job just yet.
Instead, members of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals say the overwhelming strike vote — with 94 percent of the votes cast in favor of a walkout — is meant to underscore their resolve as contract talks continue this month.
“We take this decision very seriously. No one is taking this lightly,” said Julie MacMillan, a registered nurse and the union’s lead negotiator. “But we really want to send a message to the executives that we are standing up for our patients and doing what we feel is right.”
A top UVM Medical Center administrator said the hospital already has taken preliminary steps to prepare for a short strike. But Eileen Whalen, president and chief operating officer, also said she is “confident” that a deal can be reached after some progress was made in talks held Wednesday.
“We have many weeks ahead of us, and we have four more sessions planned,” Whalen said.
The union, which represents 1,800 nurses at the state’s largest hospital, began contract talks with UVM Medical Center administrators in March. But the two sides have remained at odds over two major issues — staffing and wages — and their contract expires July 9.
At a press conference outside the hospital Wednesday morning, MacMillan reiterated the union’s concerns on both fronts and also tied the two issues together.
UVM nurses’ wages “have been stagnant for a number of years,” she said, and that has made it much more difficult to fill more than 150 nursing vacancies.
Those vacancies, MacMillan argued, are affecting hospital and clinic services and contributing to patient-care problems like falls, bed sores and infections.
“Over the last five years, our hospital and clinics have changed,” MacMillan said. “We now have more patients who are often sicker and need to stay in the hospital longer. We are up to the challenge … just give us the tools and resources we need, and we will get the job done.”
In a later interview, Whalen said UVM Medical Center’s staff-vacancy rate is similar to other hospitals. And she said the hospital has hired 754 full-time employees since October 2016, including more than 300 registered nurses, demonstrating a “strong commitment” to meeting the hospital’s needs.
In response to nurses’ complaints that they make less than their counterparts at another University of Vermont Health Network hospital in Plattsburgh, New York, Whalen said that’s a “very different market.”
“We really set our wages based on fair market value, not what our affiliates pay their nurses,” she said.
On the topic of compensation, Whalen said the hospital is proposing a 7 percent to 11 percent wage increase for the nurses’ next contract, with bigger increases for outpatient nurses and advance practice registered nurses.
Salary numbers have been difficult to interpret in the contract dispute, with each side using different calculations to make its case. The union characterized the hospital’s offer as a 1 percent raise, though MacMillan acknowledged that she was not including annual “step” increases already built into the current contract.
The bottom line, Whalen said, is that “we are very far apart (on salaries). That’s a very fair statement.”
Representatives of the union and hospital wrapped up what had been their final scheduled negotiating session on June 1 with no deal. Nine days later, the union opened voting for a strike authorization.
The results were a clear mandate: The union said 1,311 nurses voted on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and there were 1,227 votes in favor of authorizing the bargaining committee to call for a two-day strike.
It is the second strike-authorization note in the union’s 16-year history. The first came in 2003, and there was no strike that year.
There may not be one this year, either, as MacMillan said nurses will stay on the job through this month and into early July. There are four more negotiating sessions scheduled in June, after which union members will meet to “assess and plan” next steps.
“To be clear, nobody wants a strike,” MacMillan said. “But 94 percent of our members have said that they are willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get the contract that we deserve — that our patients need.”
Asked why the union didn’t pursue authorization for a lengthier strike, MacMillan said health care unions “traditionally” walk out for one or two days when necessary. “Our bargaining committee felt that a two-day strike would be the most appropriate method to deliver the seriousness with which we are taking these issues,” she said.
Even a two-day strike would have major consequences for UVM Medical Center, which is the region’s trauma center and children’s hospital. Administrators say the facility serves more than 1 million people in Vermont and New York.
Whalen said that, even before the union’s strike vote, hospital leaders had begun laying the groundwork for a possible walkout. UVM Medical Center entered into an agreement with an outside firm “to help us make strike preparations. I’m proud to say we have no expertise in this,” Whalen said.
“We’re very early on in these conversations,” she said. “They will help us look at our own operations and help us prepare” for a strike.
It’s not yet clear how the hospital would cover the absence of union nurses, though administrators have indicated that they expect some union members will choose to come to work. The hospital could hire so-called “traveling” nurses to fill gaps in critical services.
Whalen was clear, however, that UVM Medical Center leaders are not planning to scale back any of the hospital’s services if a nursing strike is called.
“We have not engaged in any of that, and it is not my intent to do that,” she said.
