1,800 Vermont Nurses On Strike

Nurses Union

Published

I'm wondering if the union's demand for a living wage for the hospital's non-union workers as well is part of a new organized labor strategy at a time of declining membership.

"On Thursday, 1,800 nurses and 300 health professionals at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) began a two-day strike to demand more for themselves and their patients. At the center of the strike are issues related to safe staffing, competitive pay and calls for a hospital-wide $15 minimum wage."

The article maintains Vermont is 47th in the US for nurses wages. The longest serving nurses at UVMMC haven't had raises in in nine years while UVMMC has bought out four other hospitals and clinics and is planning new construction of an $187.7 million expansion with no plan for staffing it. Per the article, the UVMMC's operating budget is $1.2 billion including $2 million to the CEO who dragged them back into the black out of a fraud scandal and recession.

#RedforMed: 1,8�� Vermont Nurses Are On Strike Demanding Their Hospital Put Patients Over Profits

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Specializes in Critical care.

No wonder adds for working there kept on popping up in my FB newsfeed for a while.

I won't work for a system like this.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

The strike was a week ago, July 12 and 13, though the nurses may hit the picket lines again.

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"According to Tristin Adie, a nurse practitioner and member of the bargaining committee, nurses in the rehabilitation unit routinely do laundry for up to an hour a day, while nurses in the oncology unit are consistently tasked with billing and coding duties, and nurses across the board are forced to regularly clean rooms and accompany patients to far off places in the building."

Oh Hell to the No way I would work in a place that requires that of it's nursing staff.

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The strike was a week ago, July 12 and 13, though the nurses may hit the picket lines again.

Thanks for the update!

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

The hospital and the nurses will resume negotiations tonight.

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I am glad they are standing up for themselves.

However, it is going to take more than a strike lasting a couple of days, after likely having given notice of that strike so

strikebreakers could be brought in. Giving the hospital notice also allows them to discharge lots of people, hire agency nurses,

cancel elective procedures, maybe modify Emergency Dept. functions, make managers cancel their personal plans so they

could work the floors, etc.

Nurses are likely never going to get violent in their organizing the way UAW, Teamsters (I think), and other

male-dominated/mob-controlled or influenced groups did, but they should spring sudden unannounced strikes on the

hospital to make a real impact.

Making nurses do housekeeping and transporting (maybe secretarial, pharmacy, and dietary functions, too) is so wrong. Not

because nurses are above these duties, but because it takes them away from their essential duties of direct patient care (meds, teaching, wound care, assessing and re-assessing, feeding, bathing, etc.).

I am so sick of the dog-eat-dog business of health care in America.

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I am glad they are standing up for themselves.

Nurses are likely never going to get violent in their organizing the way UAW, Teamsters (I think), and other

male-dominated/mob-controlled or influenced groups did, but they should spring sudden unannounced strikes on the

hospital to make a real impact.

I am so sick of the dog-eat-dog business of health care in America.

I couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately, we have a federal law mandating notice for striking nurses - at least in some circumstances.

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They pay nurses pennies there; its insane!!!!

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