UVM Medical Center unions approve contracts and avert a strike

The two unions representing University of Vermont Medical Center’s support staff and technical professionals have both voted to ratify their contracts, narrowly averting a strike. More than 2,000 of the 3,300 employees in the unions voted, representatives for the unions said, with more than 89% approving the new contracts.

Both unions, which represent employees such as licensed nurse assistants, lab technicians, schedulers and surgical equipment sterilizers, have been jointly negotiating new contracts since April. Discussions have centered around employees’ say in staffing levels, as UVM Health, the hospital’s parent network, has started layoffs in an effort to cut its expenses.

“We did something historic while the healthcare system continues to fall apart around us,” Nicole DiVita, the president of the technical professionals’ union, said in a written statement of the joint effort. “We bargained together, 3,300 strong, we improved patient care through safer staffing measures, and we won community benefits that bring together a broader movement of working class Vermonters in support of a system that serves all of us.”

UVM Medical Center did not respond immediately to requests for comment about the ratification. When the two parties tentatively agreed to contract language last week, Dr. Steven Leffler, the hospital’s president, said that he was grateful for the unions’ commitment to staying at the bargaining table and reaching an agreement.  

The new contracts give the unions many of their requests regarding how decisions on staffing levels are made. The support staff union’s contract gives employees the ability to contribute to staff decisions in each department, which they previously did not have. Technical staff have retained that ability to participate in creating the plans for staffing levels on each floor, and now have a much shorter timeline for when those updated plans will be implemented and enforceable — from 18 months to six.

Relatedly, licensed nursing assistants and mental health technicians pushed for an end to temporary assignments in short-staffed departments in which they had no specialization. The new contract ends that practice. The contracts do not include the unions’ earlier request for incentive pay when working on short-staffed floors. 

The agreements increase wages a combined 7% over two years, which includes a cost of living increase. The hospital had pushed to negotiate wages for the next three years, while the unions had pushed for a shorter timeline to renegotiate raises. 

Union members in short-staffed areas that have relied on traveling staff, such as respiratory therapists and MRI technicians, saw larger wage increases.   

The agreements will remain in place until the support staff and the technical staff contracts expire in April and July 2028, respectively. 

As part of their joint bargaining work, both unions also pushed for the hospital to pledge against lobbying efforts to prevent statewide universal healthcare and for the hospital to source dairy through Migrant Justice’s Milk with Dignity program. Instead, the hospital agreed to penning a joint statement with the unions about the “broken state” of the healthcare system, according to the union, and to continue discussions on joining Milk with Dignity.

Read the story on VTDigger here: UVM Medical Center unions approve contracts and avert a strike.