Nurses at UVM Medical Center in Burlington, VT, will go on strike if no collective bargaining agreement is reached

The Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals said in a press release that it believes the hospital’s bargaining team has been given no decision-making authority in negotiations that have been ongoing for three months.

Nurses voted last month to authorize a strike if no agreement on a new collective agreement is reached.

“All of the union’s decision makers have shown up every week to develop our proposals and communicate with our members, unpaid, in addition to their bedside work,” union president Deb Snell said in a statement. “The hospital pays people a lot of money to run their numbers, and they don’t have enough respect for their nurses to show up (and) explain why they don’t think it’s worth it for the hospital to recruit, retain and make sure nurses can afford to live here.”

Before the collective agreement expires on July 9, nurses will attend two more scheduled bargaining sessions on July 3 and 8 to try to reach an agreement and avoid the planned strike. Nurses said they called two bargaining sessions at the last minute, including a 10-hour session last Friday and a session Monday evening, “in hopes of avoiding a strike.”