Nurses say UVM Medical Center is offering far less than they need for pay

The University of Vermont Medical Center's nurses voted by an overwhelming majority last week to authorize a strike if they're not able to reach an agreement on a new contract with the UVM Medical Center, the president of the nurses' union said Tuesday in a press conference outside union headquarters on Colchester Avenue.

"We do not take this lightly," Deb Snell said. "Our goal is still to come to a fair contract."

Snell said 90% of the union's 1,900 nurses voted last week and 85% of those 1,700 nurses − a supermajority − voted to authorize a strike if needed.

"We know what we need to keep nurses here in Vermont and to bring nurses here," she said. "We need the hospital to truly listen to us."

Later in the afternoon, Dr. Stephen Leffler, president and chief operating officer of UVMMC, held a Zoom call with reporters to give the hospital administration's perspective on the contract talks.

Leffler said that while it's the hospital's goal to offer as much as they can to get a contract done, the union's current demands on pay would require about a 30% increase in commercial health insurance rates over the next three years, or "significant cuts" in the services UVMMC is able to offer.

"We're trying to manage the best that we can, hearing from the Green Mountain Care Board and Vermonters to keep health care costs as low as they possibly can be," Leffler said. "We want to keep insurance rates as low as possible and not eliminate services for the population we serve."

The Green Mountain Care Board regulates major areas of the health care system in Vermont, including hospital budgets.

Union says it wants 40% pay increase; hospital is offering 9%, or 17%, depending on who you ask

The two sides are very far apart on pay. The union said it's asking for a 40% increase over the three-year term of the contract. Snell said the hospital is offering 9% by the union's reckoning, although she said the hospital maintains its offer is 17%, taking into account factors the union is discounting.

"What they are offering also is if we settle by this Friday, they'll throw in another 2% automatically, and it's like, well, we'll see about that," Snell said.

The union's bargaining team has done its research, according to Snell, who said nurses in Portland, Oregon, where the cost of living is only 3% higher than in Burlington, start at $47 per hour while the nurses at UVM Medical Center start at $35 per hour. The bargaining team includes Snell.

"Right now we're very far apart," Snell said. "We're very hopeful they understand. After the strike last time we told them, 'This is not enough to bring nurses here or keep nurses here,' and well, we were right. No one could have predicted COVID, but even without that, we are just not getting the nurses here that we need."

Leffler said the union is actually asking for a 46% increase in wages, when taking into account a 2% annual increase that is part of the 24 "steps" a nurse can climb to reach the highest wage the hospital pays. Leffler said that the 2% increase per year tied to the steps is money the nurses are not including when they say they're asking for a 40% increase over three years.

"That 2% is money we have to budget and spend," he said. "The total new dollars we have on the table for the nurses is 17%."

Nurses authorize five-day strike, say previous two-day strike was ineffective

The nurses went on a two-day strike in 2018 before settling on a new contract with the hospital in which both sides gave ground on their bargaining positions. Snell said Tuesday that nurses authorized a five-day strike this time around, because the two-day strike in 2018 didn't make as much of an impact as they hoped.

"We feel we are stronger this time, we are more committed," she said. "We know our value, we know our work and we know they need us."

Leffler said the hospital is preparing for a strike and he's confident it can provide high-quality care over the five days of the strike, but he "truly hopes we don't have that situation."

"We have a comprehensive plan in place to bring in nurses from other places to work here and limit some services, and we have a significant number of (travel nurses) right now, who wouldn't be going on strike and would provide some continuity of care," he said.

Travel nurses are hired through third-party agencies to fill the gaps in a hospital's nursing staff and have been a long-standing point of contention for the union nurses at UVMMC, as travel nurses are typically paid more than permanent staff.

Leffler said if a contract isn't done by July 1, the hospital will have to make payment to the agency providing travel nurses to ensure they're available to cover for a strike. A federal mediator will join the negotiations over the next couple of days.

"We are committed to do our very best to get a contract done before the first of July if possible to make those dollars go to our nurses," he said.

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT.