The nurses union at Vermont’s largest hospital reached a tentative agreement with management on Tuesday, just days before a contract that covers some 2,000 nurses was slated to expire.
The Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, which also includes roughly 600 technicians, is the largest labor union at the Burlington hospital.
University of Vermont Health Network spokesperson Annie Mackin said in a statement Thursday that management is “very pleased” to have reached the tentative agreement with the union.
“This contract will continue to move us toward our shared goals of improving recruitment and retention, and bringing stability to our nursing workforce, and we hope that our nurses will vote to ratify it,” she added.
The nurses have long argued that management is relying on costly temporary staff, but permanent staff pay hasn’t kept pace. The union also alleges unsafe staffing levels and workplace violence at the hospital’s emergency department.
Management responded to these complaints by giving nurses immediate pay bumps last winter even before contract negotiations began, and both parties agreed the wage issues were settled for now.
“It was difficult bargaining without wages on the table,” said union President Deb Snell. “And I think it’s probably something we’ll never do again, but we made a lot of inroads in smaller areas we haven’t before. We opened up some doors for two years from now for when we’re back at the table.”
The union negotiated bonuses for part time and hourly workers, as well as for workers on call and nurses on the night shift, according to Snell. Management also agreed to meet with the union regularly to discuss workplace violence concerns.
Voting is expected to conclude Friday evening, Snell said. She anticipated that the union would ratify the contract.
Along with the proposed contract, management agreed not to interfere with the union’s future organizing effort, according to Snell, who said nurses are already working to organize the hospital’s roughly 2,000 support and custodial staff. Neutrality from management would make that task easier, she said.
The tentative agreement at the Burlington hospital comes just weeks after a similar agreement between nurses and management was reached at a network hospital across Lake Champlain. Before the contract was signed last May, the employees at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in upstate New York had been working without a contract.
If the Burlington nurses union ratifies the contract, it would go into effect on July 9 and run to July 9, 2024.