The registered nurses of Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans voted in favor of unionizing Thursday after four months of organizing.
The 150 nurses at the small regional hospital voted 72-45 in favor of formalizing their union. Peter Wright, the medical center’s president, said via email that the hospital would recognize and respect the outcome of the election.
Emily Millman, a nurse at the hospital and a member of the union’s organizing committee, said the latest vote was the nurses’ second attempt in recent years to get a union off the ground. A 201 effort ended after the hospital administration offered the nurses more input into decision-making through a shared governance model.
However, she said that many nurses came to the conclusion that they should be much more involved in decisions at the hospital.
“Most of us not only work here, but also we live here” in the community, she said. “Our families live here, our friends live here. So in the small hospital setting, we’re often caring for each other’s family members. You could be caring for your neighbor. So we’re all deeply invested in our hospital being a good place to work and a good place to receive care.”
A key concern of the newly formed union is staff safety. Millman said she has seen firsthand a rise in physical violence against staff members during her work in the emergency department.
To address that concern, she said the union was considering asking for more support staff and better nurse-to-patient ratios, which, she said, would also improve quality of care.
“It’s really hard to take the care you want to take of your friend’s grandma when you have five other patients to look after, and you have to prioritize based on who’s the sickest and needs you the fastest,” she said.
While pay was not a major factor in forming the union, she said the union hoped to create a more equitable system for nurses to move up the career ladder.
“There’s not necessarily a clear path to expecting when or anticipating when you’re going to get a pay raise or a market adjustment,” she said.
The next step for the union is bargaining a first contract.
“The sooner that we can reach an agreement, the better it is for everyone,” she said. “The less resources get sort of used in that process, the sooner we can have a better, happier workplace to be able to retain more staff.”
Wright said via email that the hospital’s administration was “committed to moving forward and shaping a positive future focused on our common mission of providing exceptional care for our community.”
The new union is joining AFT Vermont, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers that represents more than 10,000 health care and higher education workers statewide, including at several other Vermont hospitals. Nurses and support staff at Central Vermont Medical Center voted to join AFT Vermont in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Porter Medical Center support staffers signed their first contract with the hospital in 2024.
Nicole DiVita, president for health care at AFT Vermont, said in a statement that she was thrilled the nurses would “now have a real voice in their workplace.”
Millman echoed that excitement.
“Most of us became nurses because we want to make the world a better place,” she said. “And for me personally, this is a huge reflection of that. I have the cool opportunity, as part of the organizing committee, to make more patient lives better, not only (those) who are in my direct care but also throughout my organization, and that’s really exciting.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Northwestern Medical Center nurses vote to form union.