Jane Katz Field and John Field each worked for many years in Brattleboro Memorial Hospital's pediatrics and oncology departments. This piece is a response to a letter published on March 24 in the Brattleboro Reformer and in this week's Voices section.
PUTNEY-Rick Cowan asks: "Do the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) nurses understand the implications of walking off the job now?"
The more correct question Cowan should be asking would be: "Does BMH management understand the implications of failing to bargain in good faith by insisting on draconian takeaways from the nursing and lower-paid staff?"
Ask most Windham County folks how they feel about our hospital, Brattleboro Memorial, and they'll say how much they love the nurses, the doctors, and the hard-working staff. None of the nurses wants to "walk off the job"; rather, it is management's unfair demands that are forcing these heroic, essential workers to take a stand.
Vermont's own U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said it like it is in January when he joined the picket line during New York City's nursing strike.
"The people of this country are sick and tired of […] the drug companies ripping us off, the insurance companies ripping us off, and hospital executives getting huge salaries. [...] Don't tell me you can't treat nurses with dignity when you're spending […] millions of dollars on traveling nurses," he said.
"So, the people of New York City, the people of Vermont, the people of America love and appreciate our nurses," Sanders said. "And today we say to those hospitals: Sit down and negotiate a decent contract."
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Many of the Windham County's 46,000 residents are extremely concerned about the six years of BMH's jaw-dropping financial mismanagement, adding up to a whopping $14.5 million shortfall, according to Vermont's Green Mountain Care Board, which in turn led to the departures of BMH's chief executive officer and chief financial officer.
While rural hospitals all across the country are facing structural issues leading many to close down, it is unconscionable that our hospital's disastrous deficits were covered up for so many years.
Furthermore, the hospital's management and board of directors have failed to take accountability for such shocking financial incompetence.
While management has eliminated six high-paying administrative positions and cancelled bonuses for the very highest earners, the hospital's strategy for digging itself out of the hole includes carving it out of the hides of the much-lower-paid nurses and staff.
After spending $400,000 last year on a union-busting law firm in a failed effort to prevent dietary, custodial, technical, and clerical workers from forming a union, management now has presented a long list of takeaways from nurses, frontline health-care workers, and low-paid workers, including:
• No wage increases for three years.
• Cuts to differentials.
• A 4% reduction of retirement contributions.
• Forcing spouses off of family insurance (costing those spouses up to a $1,200 monthly insurance premium) and other cuts to healthcare.
• Cuts to paid time off.
• Cuts to union rights.
The Brattleboro Federation of Nurses has said that such takeaways would lead to a "hemorrhaging of BMH nurses and staff" to other area hospitals.
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It is important to bear in mind that lower-paid staff currently begin at $17 per hour, which, for a family of four, comes close to the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Nursing salaries begin at $25 per hour.
Contrast that to the top three executives' salaries, who in 2024 were paid between $259,000 and $440,000. Why is it that management's "solution" for their shocking, multi-year mismanagement is to claw back money from the lowest-paid workers while leaving the highest-paid executives with such enormous pay packages?
And how shortsighted it is for BMH to force a strike, which would incur huge outlays for paying strike-breaking "replacement" nurses. Replacing just one striking nurse can cost a hospital between $1,600 and $2,000 per day in wages alone, with significant additional costs for transportation, housing, and meals.
Now, multiply that figure by 160 - the number of nurses caring for patients at BMH, nurses who would need to be replaced.
Aside from the impact on patient care from replacement nurses' lack of familiarity with BMH, it has been estimated that post-strike burnout can increase permanent staff turnover, resulting in costs between $37,700 and $58,400 per replacement nurse.
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As Bernie said, "Sit down and negotiate a decent contract."
Please write and call the members of BMH's board (bmhvt.org/about/board-of-directors/) and urge them to do what Bernie asks: genuinely support our hospital's incredible staff.
This Voices Response was submitted to The Commons.
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