Central Vermont Medical Center support staff votes to unionize

Support staff at Central Vermont Medical Center have voted to form a union, the American Federation of Teachers-Vermont announced on Thursday.

“As support staff, we are the foundation of CVMC, and we know that when we have a voice at work, we will be able to show up better for our patients and their families,” licensed nursing assistant and union organizing committee member Ashley Copeland said in a press release from AFT-Vermont celebrating the pro-union vote.

Support staff broadly includes licensed nursing assistants, mental health technicians, phlebotomists, and front desk and food service workers.

Roughly 480 support staff across Central Vermont Medical Center’s locations — which include the hospital, 27 community-based medical practices and a skilled nursing facility — will make up the union, a new local chapter of AFT-Vermont, the organization said. The final vote tally was 244-66.

The vote comes just over a year after Central Vermont Medical Center nurses and technical staff unionized . However, support staff will form a new chapter and will negotiate their own contract. Both unions fall under the umbrella of AFT-Vermont, but the nurses and technical staff created and make up the Central Vermont Healthcare United chapter.

This week’s election also follows successful unionization efforts at other hospitals in the University of Vermont Health Network, including support staff at the University of Vermont Medical Center and Porter Medical Center .

“We expect to be in contact with the union soon to begin negotiating a collective bargaining agreement,” hospital spokesperson Jay Ericson said in a statement. “(Yesterday’s) results were not unexpected and reflect a trend not only at University of Vermont Health Network partner locations but nationally as well.”

Organizing the vote began in November, AFT-Vermont said, and according to the hospital’s statement, it received the support staff’s petition to unionize earlier this summer.

“We are so proud of our support staff for their organizing efforts,” Central Vermont Healthcare United President Amanda Mills-Brown, a nurse, said in the release. “We could not do our jobs without them, and they deserve to earn wages that allow them to care for themselves and their families.”

Central Vermont Medical Center support staff are feeling good about the union vote, according to Spencer Starr, a patient service specialist and organizing committee member.

“Excited, a little bit more well rested,” she said in an interview on Friday, the day after the votes were counted. “We’ve been pushing really hard and wanted to get to the vote day and see a ‘yes’ vote come through.”

Support staff members often do not receive the same employment protections as other hospital workers, Starr said. “We don’t have governing bodies like nurses and techs do. We don’t necessarily have degrees and certificates we can rely on,” she said.

Starr has worked at a Central Vermont Medical Center outpatient speciality clinic for a little more than two years. In that time, she’s seen that there aren’t enough providers and appointment times for patients. She hopes the union will help recruit more staff to help with the workload, allowing the hospital to serve more patients.

She said she believes the union will allow staff to fight for higher wages, better benefits and greater protections.

“Health care is such a beast to talk about,” Starr said. “Unions aren’t the issue here. We’re the ones who are day in, day out interacting with patients … We’re not the ones deciding the cost.”

Next, support staff members plan to head to the bargaining table to negotiate their first contract with the medical center’s administration. They plan to bargain for experience-based pay scales, safe staffing ratios, and communication and transparency with hospital management.

“We are passionate about our jobs, and we value being in service to our central Vermont community, so we are hoping to work collaboratively with the CVMC administration to come to mutually beneficial agreements that will impact our community positively,” Starr said in the release.

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