[B]URLINGTON – University of Vermont Medical Center administrators and the hospital’s unionized nurses are engaging in 11th-hour talks in an effort to avert a work stoppage.
The contract covering 1,800 nurses expired at 12:01 a.m. Monday. The Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals has said its 1,800 members will begin a 48-hour strike at 7 a.m. Thursday if there’s no new contract in place.
Representatives of the union and hospital entered negotiations at 4 p.m. Monday and have another session scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday.
But both sides also are preparing for a strike: UVM Medical Center is making arrangements to bring in at least 500 “contingency nurses” to keep the hospital running, and the union has lined up support from a variety of labor organizations – some of whom said they would join nurses on the picket line.
“We’ll stand with you right to the end,” said Bill Kelly, business agent for the Barre-based Teamsters Local 597.
Contract talks for UVM Medical Center’s licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners began in late March. But negotiations have bogged down in staffing and salary disputes.
Union leaders say the hospital has 130 to 150 nursing vacancies at any given time, and they say the overworked staff can’t keep up with increasingly acute patient needs. Julie MacMillan, the union’s lead negotiator, said the hospital currently is paying about 90 temporary nurses – also known as “travelers” – to fill the gap.
Hospital administrators counter that their vacancy and turnover rates are on par with health care facilities across Vermont and nationally. They also say they’ve hired more than 750 nurses and support staff since October 2016, including 98 nursing hires since March of this year.
Wages are a related issue, because the union argues that the hospital doesn’t pay enough to recruit and retain nurses. UVM Medical Center’s nurses say they want pay parity with their counterparts at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, another University of Vermont Health Network facility in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Rather than pay for expensive traveling nurses, “we would hope that the hospital would want to put money into their own community nurses,” MacMillan said.
She also said the hospital needs to do more for approximately 600 nurses who are at the top of the pay scale because of their seniority. They don’t receive annual “step” increases, so they haven’t gotten a pay raise in nearly a decade, MacMillan said.
But the union’s pay proposal adds up to a 24 percent increase over three years, which hospital administrators say is “not realistic.” They’ve offered a 13 percent hike, which they say would boost a registered nurse’s average annual salary from $72,000 to $84,000 by the end of the contract.
There’s been some compromise on both of the sticking points.
For example, hospital leaders say they’ll ensure that outpatient nurses are paid the same as inpatient nurses starting in September of this year, rather than phasing in that change over the duration of the contract.
The hospital also has agreed that supervisory “charge” nurses no longer will be assigned patients so that they can focus on “quality, safety and patient experience” in their unit.
MacMillan said that’s a positive move. “It’s a safety issue, and I will give (hospital leaders) credit that they agreed with that,” she said in an interview Monday.
“We’ve found some creative ways to handle staffing,” MacMillan added. “But what we’ve said is that all the great staffing language in the contract won’t help if we don’t have the people to fill those positions.”
The nurses’ union in June voted overwhelmingly to authorize a two-day strike if necessary. With no agreement in sight, the union last week announced a July 12 strike date.
Meanwhile, the hospital has contracted with Colorado-based Autumn Consulting Services, which has been working with UVM Medical Center to prepare for a strike. According to its website, the company can “rapidly deploy professional staff that will allow full operation of your organization; demonstrate competence to your healthcare professionals, board and other stakeholders; and enable you to navigate through difficult circumstances while you work to resolve your dispute.”
The hospital has not yet said exactly how many temporary staffers Autumn will be sending; a hospital spokesperson said the current estimate is about 500, though “that number may go up.” Medical center administrators also have said they believe some union nurses will cross the picket line and report to work.
In a statement issued Monday, medical center President and Chief Operating Officer Eileen Whalen said the hospital is “prepared to continue providing the care patients need during the potential strike with as little disruption as possible.”
The hospital has scheduled a press conference for Tuesday afternoon to further discuss plans for a work stoppage.
Prior to Monday’s bargaining session, leaders of the nurses’ union gathered with representatives of about 18 labor and social justice organizations for a rally held at a Burlington fire station a short distance from the hospital.
Andrew Styles, president of the Burlington Education Association, referenced the fact that the city’s teachers went on strike for several days last year. “The teachers of Burlington know the heartache of having to choose to strike when you know that people are depending on you every day,” Styles said.
The UVM nurses’ decision to strike was made “not in spite of the patients and community, but instead to protect and provide for the patients of our community,” Styles added.
Several speakers pointed to the fact that UVM Medical Center has been posting above-budget earnings. They also noted that Dr. John Brumsted, the top administrator of both the hospital and UVM Health Network, has made more than $2 million per year in salary and benefits.
“The (hospital) administration must negotiate a fair contract and start spending their millions where it really counts, or we’ll be seeing them again and again on the picket lines,” said Kathleen Coonrod, a local steward with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.
