[B]URLINGTON – University of Vermont Medical Center nurses began a 48-hour strike Thursday morning, staffing picket lines at 10 locations while hundreds of temporary nurses took their place at Vermont’s largest hospital.
A large crowd of red-clad nurses gathered at midday near the hospital’s main entrance, bearing signs and airing their grievances over staffing and salaries.
“We are standing up for ourselves, for our patients and for our community,” Julie MacMillan, a registered nurse and the union’s lead negotiator, told the cheering throng.
Meanwhile, UVM Medical Center President Eileen Whalen said administrators were following through with a “comprehensive strike-management plan” that allowed most hospital functions to continue uninterrupted.
“What I’ve seen personally today, and based on reports I’ve received from throughout the organization, I’m confident this plan is working very well,” Whalen said at an afternoon press conference.
The Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, which represents about 1,800 licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners, notified the hospital last week of its intention to begin a two-day strike at 7 a.m. Thursday if no new contract was in place. The union’s contract expired Monday.
Negotiations broke off late Wednesday amid continued disagreement on salary.
The union says UVM is paying a substandard wage, leading to understaffing and gaps in patient care. The union said its last offer on Wednesday night was a combined 22 percent pay hike over three years, with annual 2 percent “step” increases included in that figure.
Hospital administrators say their vacancy rate is in line with other health care institutions, and they say they’ve hired nearly 100 nurses since March of this year. The hospital also said its raise offer increased from 13 percent to 14 percent on Wednesday, with bigger increases for certain types of nurses.
There has been some movement on other fronts, as well. For example, the hospital has said supervisory “charge” nurses no longer will have direct patient assignments so that they can concentrate more on quality and safety.
But there has not been enough compromise to bring the two sides together. As negotiations ended Wednesday night, Whalen said “the organization could not responsibly meet the union’s wage demands” and also fulfill its commitments to patients and other employees.
The hospital has contracted with a Colorado company that specializes in health care staffing during work stoppages. Administrators have said Autumn Consulting Services sent nearly 600 nurses to staff UVM Medical Center and its clinics for the duration of the strike.
Whalen said 275 replacement nurses reported for work Thursday morning at the hospital, and another 90 reported to the medical center’s clinics. She again declined to estimate a cost for those services, saying the final number won’t be clear until after the strike is over.
In addition to the nurses sent by Autumn Consulting, Whalen said there were “quite a few” union nurses who showed up for work – though she couldn’t say exactly how many. Administrators said 125 union members have indicated a willingness to work at some point during the strike.
The bottom line for Thursday, Whalen said, was that “we have the same number of nurses working at the hospital today as we would on any other day.”
Hospital leaders have said 68 elective surgical procedures were postponed due to the strike. But they said everything else was running smoothly on Thursday aside from a few minor technical glitches in the morning.
Chief Medical Officer Isabelle Desjardins said the hospital was at 84 percent capacity, meaning there were about 390 patients. Whalen said UVM Medical Center continued to take patient transfers from other hospitals, and the “vast majority” of outpatient appointments continued as scheduled.
Outside the hospital, however, it was not business as usual. The striking nurses — amid beating drums and blaring horns — chanted slogans like “nurses united will never be defeated” and “UVMMC: Shame on you.”
Tristin Adie, a nurse practitioner, said the union is getting strong support from the community and from patients. And she denounced the hospital’s big investments in capital improvements and executive pay, complaining of a “class war against us.”
“We’re here, we’re not leaving, and we’re going to win this fight,” Adie told the crowd.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called in via cellphone and was amplified on the rally’s sound system. He thanked the nurses “for standing up … for decent wages and decent working conditions.”
“Bottom line is, we do not have quality health care unless we have adequate nurse staffing at the hospital,” Sanders said.
At outlying picket locations, crowds were smaller but emotions still ran high.
Caitlin Gray, a nurse at the hospital’s Fanny Allen campus, stood near a curb as numerous passing cars honked in support. She said community support had been “phenomenal,” but it had been “agonizing” to not report to work Thursday.
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking,” said Gray, a member of the union’s bargaining committee. “I think it’s a very, very difficult decision. None of us came to it lightly. We were in tears last night at negotiations when we weren’t able to (reach) a deal.”
But Gray and Barbara Lindberg, a nurse who picketed outside Essex Pediatrics, both said it was important to strike.
“What we’re doing today is to ensure safe staffing for the future,” Lindberg said.
Nurses are scheduled to strike until 7 a.m. Saturday. It appears there won’t be an earlier resolution, as Whalen pledged that “there are no negotiations during a strike.”
She expressed optimism, however, that the contract dispute could be resolved sooner rather than later.
“It is our goal to get back to the table as soon as possible,” Whalen said. “I do think a little cooling-off period would be healthy for all parties.”
Hear audio and analysis of the nurses’ strike on this week’s Deeper Dig podcast:
