[S]T. ALBANS — Nurses at Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to kick-start the unionization process.
The nurses at the small community hospital say that while they are satisfied with their wages, they are pushing for a voice in the hospital’s decision-making and improvements in staffing ratios, retention, training and equipment.
Nicole Messier, an operating room nurse at the hospital, said the nurses feel that forming a union will give them more of a voice in the hospital’s decision-making.
“Our managers are great, they do the best they can to support us and advocate for our units,” she said. “We simply feel that we can help them do their jobs better by organizing and setting policy in place through a fair contract.”
The hospital is “saddened and disappointed” that the nurses are moving toward unionization, Jonathan Billings, the hospital’s vice president of community relations, said.
“We take great pride in the care our nurses and our entire team provides, and we don’t believe a third party would be beneficial to anyone,” he said.
The nurses have asked the hospital to recognize the nursing union without a vote of nurses, but the hospital does not plan to do so.
“We would want to have each of our nurses have the chance to vote, and then we would work with the outcome of that vote,” Billings said. “Imposing a union on someone is not the process, but if folks feel a vote is necessary, it can come to a vote.”
Nurse Erin Blake said she hopes that the union can help the hospital attract and retain nurses, improve patient ratios and set clear policies that apply to all nurses.
“I hope to be able to negotiate and have a voice in how my fellow nurses and I provide care at the bedside so we can continue to provide our community with the level of care our patients deserve,” she said.
Messier said the unionization efforts were “not at all” related to the highly publicized ongoing contract dispute between the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington and its nurses union.
“This union will be made up with Northwestern Medical Center nurses, and this is our community,” she said. “So we’ll make judgements based on what’s best for our community,”
The UVM Medical Center and its nurses agreed on a tentative contract last week and will announce the result of the voting from its nurses tomorrow morning.
For example, one of the biggest areas of conflict between UVM Medical Center and its nurses is wages. At Northwestern Medical Center, the nurses feel like they are compensated fairly, Messier said, and are focused on other issues.
“We want resources from the hospital not to go into our paychecks but to go back into the things we need,” she said. “We need the tools.”
The hospital system has approximately 180 nurses, Messier said, and a “vast majority” have signed the petition to unionize.
Proper staffing ratios is the biggest issue at the hospital, nurse Samantha McCarthy said. The nurses added that all of the issues they want to improve focus on patient safety.
The nurses said that while hospital has announced that it planned to lower the staffing-to-patient ratio in the primary care unit by February, this only happened after the hospital was aware the nurses were discussing unionization.
Billings said that the hospital is always working on improving its processes, policies and procedures.
“I think there are concerns and there are strains, and hospitals face staffing challenges, but in general we consider this a great place to work and a team that provides exceptional patient care,” he said.
St. Albans’ alderperson Mike McCarthy attended a press conference organized by the nurses on Thursday and said he hopes the hospital won’t spend its resources fighting the unionization effort.
“What we’ve heard from the nurses who want to organize is they care deeply about this hospital, they care deeply about patient care and patient safety,” he said.
