[L]ess than four months after University of Vermont Medical Center settled a contentious contract dispute with unionized nurses, another labor struggle may be in the works.
The hospital’s technical professionals, who work under a contract that expires March 1, are raising staffing, salary and safety concerns after two negotiating sessions with administrators.
It’s still early in the process, as the two sides have been talking for less than a month. But the issues cited by the technical professionals are similar to those that spurred a nurses’ strike last year.
“We are still holding out hope that things are going to be different,” union officials said in a statement issued Monday. “However, the safety of our patients and colleagues continues to be our primary concern.”
While the union used the word “stalemate,” a hospital administrator disagreed with that characterization. Clinical Services Vice President Chris Oliver said there had been “progress” in early negotiations, including tentative agreements on two topics.
“We look forward to bargaining in good faith and reaching an agreement that is fair and equitable for our staff and one that allows our hospital to achieve its mission, which is providing high quality, safe care for our patients, their families and the community in an affordable and sustainable manner,” Oliver said.
UVM Medical Center’s technical professionals hold a wide variety of job titles including respiratory therapists, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, emergency department technicians, operating room technicians, dialysis technicians, ophthalmic technicians and health information management coders.
In total, there are about 340 technical professionals organized under the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. The Williston-based union also represents about 1,800 nurses at UVM Medical Center.
Last year’s high-profile nursing dispute at UVM Medical looms large over the technical professionals’ negotiations. Those talks, which centered on wages and staffing, started in March and led to a two-day strike in July.
In September, the nurses union ratified a contract that included a 16 percent wage increase as well as some staffing and scheduling changes.
In Monday’s statement, the union said hospital administrators began talks last month with the technical professionals by saying, “This time is different.”
“They handed us their proposal on day one of bargaining, complete with an economic outline of wage adjustments,” the union said. “We are hopeful that this time is different, hopeful that they have learned from the errors which led to our nurses taking part in a historic unfair labor strike, hopeful they have decided to put our patients before their profits.”
But union leaders say they are not happy with some aspects of the hospital’s offer.
One key concern is a new proposal for “mandatory floating” among remote sites owned by the hospital for dialysis and surgical technicians. The union says that would require some technicians “to travel as far south as Rutland and as far north as Newport without any additional compensation or differentials.”
“We do not think adding long, difficult commutes, extended work hours and working in unfamiliar hospitals supports patient care,” the union said.
The union’s statement included a testimonial from Nicole Buckless, a South Burlington-based dialysis technician who said “floating would add substantial travel times to our already long 10- to 12-hour work days” and would exacerbate pressures from substandard wages.
In response, Oliver said mandatory floating “would be used very infrequently and only in a few areas where there is a patient-care need.”
Hospital spokesperson Annie Mackin said surgical techs would be floating only from the main hospital campus in Burlington to the Fanny Allen campus in Colchester.
Dialysis techs floating among six remote sites would not be required to travel more than 70 miles, Mackin said. And those who must travel more than 20 miles beyond their normal commute “get their full hourly wage for the additional time it takes to get to the different location, considering it worked time,” Mackin said. “They are also reimbursed for mileage beyond their regular commute.”
Union leaders also are concerned about staffing levels at the hospital. In the union’s statement, Emergency Medical Technician Kay Dellagrotta said “our phones are barraged every day, multiple times a day, with calls from the staffing department asking us to stay late or come in to support open shifts.”
The union also quoted a nurse who said “half of the techs in our operating room are travelers,” meaning temporary workers who receive higher pay than hospital staff. The hospital has not been advertising to hire permanent operating room technicians, the nurse said.
As hospitals statewide deal with a shortage of health care workers, Oliver acknowledged that some of the positions covered by the technical professionals’ contract are “hard to fill.”
But she also said the hospital has offered wage hikes that are aimed, in part, at improving recruitment and retention. No one will get less than a 9 percent salary increase over the life of the deal, and some workers will receive as much as a 26 percent increase, she said.
More than two-thirds of the union would receive pay hikes of more than 10 percent, Oliver said.
“We have a really competitive package that we put on the table,” she said.
The two sides are continuing to talk. Oliver said the next bargaining session is set for Jan. 24, with additional meetings expected after that.
