BRATTLEBORO-Brattleboro Memorial Hospital may be on the brink of a nurses’ strike.
This is not good news for the hospital, as it comes on top of a disappearing chief executive, the resignation of its chief financial officer, an influx of hospital financial experts, the recalculation of a $14.5 million budget deficit that will take between two and three years to eradicate, and an ongoing top-to-bottom examination of costs and services that includes mediation with two unions.
The unions are not happy about the way this mediation has been going.
The Brattleboro Federation of Nurses (BFN) is a local union of the Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO.
“Through mismanagement, BMH administration has dug a $14 million hole and is now asking nurses, frontline health care workers and low-paid union workers to bear the brunt of the economic pain,” said Heather Riemer, the executive director of AFT Vermont, the largest AFL-CIO union in Vermont, in a press release.
BMH vehemently disputes the language of these charges.
“Brattleboro Memorial Hospital remains committed to reaching a fair and responsible agreement with the nurses represented by the Brattleboro Federation of Nurses,” said BMH Chief Nursing Officer Jackie Ethier. “We value our nurses and the critical role they play in caring for our community, and we are eager to continue negotiations in good faith.”
The BFN was in negotiations with the hospital over proposed cost-cutting measures such as a wage freeze for three years, cuts to differentials (extra money allocated to frontline caregivers for overtime and late-night shifts), a 4% reduction of retirement contributions, and cutting off family insurance plans for spouses who qualify for health insurance options from other sources, among other things.
The BFN ended mediation last week and announced it was going to hold a strike vote. It claims that “over 80 percent of the nurses at BMH have committed to going on strike if management continues to make these proposals,” Riemer said.
As of March 15, no further mediation has been scheduled.
“Unfortunately, the BFN chose to leave the most recent mediation session and cancelled the next scheduled meeting with the federal mediator,” Ethier said. “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.”
BMH, she continued, “has been transparent about the significant financial challenges the hospital is facing.”
“Our proposals are designed to stabilize the hospital’s finances so we can continue providing care to the community for the long term while maintaining competitive wages and benefits,” Ethier said. “Simply maintaining the status quo contract without addressing these realities is not financially sustainable.”
While BMH management is eager to return to the bargaining table, the nurses are beginning the process of organizing a strike.
“The strike vote period will be March 18 to March 22, and ballots will go out electronically to the BFN membership on March 18,” said Sarah Shames, a union organizer with AFT Vermont. “We expect results to be announced on March 23.”
If a majority of nurses vote to strike, “the BFN Bargaining Team may choose strike dates and deliver a 10-day strike notice to the hospital — a legal requirement for health care workers — at any time after the votes are counted,” Shames said. “Through the whole process, BFN and BMH management may continue to negotiate.”
Matters of sustainability
Economically, a strike would be extremely costly to the fragile finances of the hospital.
“If the nurses decide to strike, it would be really unfortunate and very sad for the hospital,” said Dr. Tony Blofson, acting co-CEO of the hospital. “It would be very unfortunate for the community, which is supporting the hospital and really wants it to stay open.”
Blofson estimated that a strike would cost $1 million to $1.5 million.
Hiring traveling nurses or strike nurses to replace the striking nurses would be costly, he said, calling that expense “financially really unfortunate.”
“We don’t want that at all,” Blofson said. “We would love to go to negotiate and go back and forth.”
Tracy Ouellette, BFN president, told The Commons that the burden of cost-cutting is harder for the nurses than on, perhaps, the more highly paid doctors and administrators who might more easily handle living in an uncertain economy struggling with inflation.
“The hospital is $14.5 million in debt right now,” Ouellette said. “It’s unclear where the debt has come from, but it has accumulated for many years, probably since about 2017.”
During the last contract negotiation, “the hospital administration stated they want to make up the deficit in a two-year time period,” she continued, calling the situation “a very high reach for the hospital, since it took so many years to accumulate this debt.”
“And the way they’re going about relinquishing their debt is to put a three-year wage freeze on the entire campus — the entire hospital. Not just for bargaining members or nurses. But what they were asking is to cut all of our differentials, decrease our retirement contributions, increase our health care contributions, decrease our earned time allowances and then take a three-year wage freeze.”
In the state of Vermont, health insurance premiums are the most expensive per capita in the country, Ouellette pointed out.
“Your cost of living is very expensive,” she said. “So this is not sustainable to remain as a nurse at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.”
The hospital remains eager to resume negotiations with the nurses.
“We remain ready to return to the bargaining table at any time and hope the BFN will engage in meaningful negotiations rather than continuing to repeat the same ‘status quo’ proposal,” Ethier said.
“Our shared goal should be a contract that supports our nurses while ensuring the long-term stability of the hospital and the services our community depends on,” she said. “BMH remains committed to working collaboratively toward a solution that is fair, responsible, and sustainable for our staff, our patients, and the broader community.”
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.