A union representing nurses at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, objecting to proposed curbs on salaries and benefits amid a projected $14.5 million annual budget shortfall, will vote this week on whether to strike.
The Brattleboro Federation of Nurses is set to send ballots to its 160 members Wednesday and reveal the results March 23. If a walkout is approved, the union must issue a 10-day legal notice before it can strike at the 500-employee facility with a service area of about 55,000 people.
“Nurses want to continue caring for this community,” Tracy Ouellette, a nurse and union president, said in a statement. “But that requires a contract that supports the nurses our patients rely on.”
In response, hospital leaders said they want to continue negotiations with a federal mediator rather than close everything except for yet-to-be-specified “essential services” during a strike.
“BMH has been transparent about the significant financial challenges the hospital is facing,” Jackie Ethier, its chief nursing officer, said in a statement. “At a time when productive dialogue is most needed, we believe stepping away from the bargaining table does not move us closer to a resolution.”
Labor and management at southeastern Vermont’s main health care provider began contract talks last year, only to pause in the fall when state regulators questioned the accuracy of the hospital’s current $130 million operating budget — a move that led to the discovery of the $14.5 million deficit and the subsequent exits of its chief executive and financial officers.
The 61-bed hospital — one of Brattleboro’s three largest employers — says it can’t afford raises for any of its 500 workers because of the deficit and a push by regulators for higher productivity.
“We’re not directing anything personally at the nurses, but our job is to ensure the financial viability of this hospital,” orthopaedic surgeon Elizabeth McLarney, one of two acting co-CEOs, said in an interview.
McLarney’s fellow interim leader, primary care physician Tony Blofson, noted Baystate Health an hour south in neighboring Massachusetts had eliminated nearly 400 jobs in the past two years.
“If you look across the nation, hospitals are closing, hospitals are cutting,” Blofson said. “All of us working here together and making some financial changes, we can turn this around and keep our hospital open for the benefit of the community — and to save our jobs, too.”
Amid talk of a strike, both labor and management capped their statements by saying they were open to continue negotiations on a three-year contract to replace one that expired Sept. 30.
A second hospital union — Brattleboro Healthcare United, representing 280 support staffers — is set to hold another bargaining session this week after expressing its own disapproval with the proposed salary and benefit curbs.
