Latest / The Real News Podcast / Layoffs, Long Waits, Obscene Prices: Vermont Healthcare Workers and Patients Face Historic Crisis

Transcript

Layoffs, Long Waits, Obscene Prices: Vermont Healthcare Workers and Patients Face Historic Crisis · The Real News Podcast

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Speaker 1: Ah I got.
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Speaker 2: Oh welcome every one two. Working People a podcast about
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Speaker 2: the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of the working class today.
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Speaker 2: Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio
0:17
Speaker 2: Podcast Network and has brought to you in partnership within
0:20
Speaker 2: These Times magazine and the Real News Network. This show
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Speaker 2: is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the
0:27
Speaker 2: support of listeners just like you. My name is Maximilian Alvarez,
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Speaker 2: and today we are headed north to the state of Vermont,
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Speaker 2: where frontline healthcare workers and the patients they serve are
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Speaker 2: facing a major crisis at the University of Vermont Health Network,
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Speaker 2: the state's leading healthcare provider. In an article published in
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Speaker 2: The Rake Vermont, which is an independent worker owned news
0:51
Speaker 2: outlet based in Vermont, writer Matt Moore breaks down the
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Speaker 2: situation like this quote. In June, UVM Health eliminated over
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Speaker 2: one hundred and forty positions across its network, a third
1:03
Speaker 2: of which were union positions, according to AFT Vermont, which
1:07
Speaker 2: represents workers there. The cuts, which the hospital estimated will
1:11
Speaker 2: save nine point five million dollars, comes as the network
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Speaker 2: faces a three hundred million dollar budget shortfall. Rules set
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Speaker 2: by the Green Mountain Careboard, which regulates Vermont hospitals, will
1:24
Speaker 2: require UVM Health to cut expenses by that amount over
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Speaker 2: the next three years. Later that month, UVM Health handed
1:32
Speaker 2: down a speed up order to its medical group, which
1:35
Speaker 2: includes outpatient clinics and more than one thousand physicians, which
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Speaker 2: practitioners say will result in briefer appointments with patients. Owen Foster,
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Speaker 2: the former chair of the Green Mountain Careboard, took aim
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Speaker 2: at what he saw as the excesses of UVM Health
1:51
Speaker 2: in a board meeting last September. Quote It's essentially an
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Speaker 2: expensive and ineffective layer of overpriced and unnecessary corporate bureaucracy
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Speaker 2: that has proven itself both physically and spiritually, distant and
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Speaker 2: unconnected from the mission of our flagship academic medical center
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Speaker 2: and the needs of Vermoners, Foster said. Foster found that
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Speaker 2: the surplus revenue earned by UVM Medical Center was being
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Speaker 2: siphoned off by UVM Health to subsidize its hospitals in
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Speaker 2: New York state that the network has been unable to
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Speaker 2: manage profitably to the tune of over one hundred million
2:27
Speaker 2: dollars over the last several years. He noted that at
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Speaker 2: the same time that uvm Health was shutting down kidney
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Speaker 2: dialysis services in Saint Albans, Rutland, and Newport. It was
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Speaker 2: moving ten million dollars from UVMMC to its New York hospitals.
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Speaker 2: Multiple executives, many of whom had received a combined three
2:47
Speaker 2: million dollars in bonuses in twenty twenty four, were laid
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Speaker 2: off in October of twenty twenty five as part of
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Speaker 2: a restructuring process. However, the most recent round of cuts
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Speaker 2: and likely future cuts are aimed directly at the caregiver
3:02
Speaker 2: and support levels, leading to reductions in the quality of
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Speaker 2: care for a majority of vermontors. End quote to talk
3:09
Speaker 2: about all of this. I'm really grateful to be joined
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Speaker 2: on the show today by two guests. Melissa Lavalli is
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Speaker 2: Secretary of UVMMC Support Staff United and VP of Healthcare
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Speaker 2: for AFT Vermont, and Teagan Cook is lead out patient
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Speaker 2: chemotherapy scheduler at her hospital and a chief steward in
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Speaker 2: UVMMC Support Staff United. Melissa Teagan thank you both so
3:34
Speaker 2: much for joining me today. I really appreciate it, and
3:37
Speaker 2: I know we got a lot to dig into here,
3:39
Speaker 2: and I want to talk to you about everything that's
3:42
Speaker 2: happening now at the UVM system with these you know,
3:46
Speaker 2: devastating cuts or restructurings or whatever we're calling them, and
3:51
Speaker 2: the events that led to this point. But before we
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Speaker 2: do that, I'd really love to start by getting to
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Speaker 2: know more about you all and the work that you do.
3:59
Speaker 2: You know, every week we strive to, you know, remind
4:02
Speaker 2: listeners that there are flesh and blood, human beings and
4:06
Speaker 2: fellow workers behind every name tag, every job title, and
4:11
Speaker 2: you know, every one of us has a story worth telling.
4:14
Speaker 2: So please tell us more about yourselves and how you
4:18
Speaker 2: got into this work and the kind of jobs that
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Speaker 2: you do.
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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having us. I'm Melissa and
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Speaker 3: I've lived in Vermont my whole life. I was born here,
4:28
Speaker 3: my family lives here. I was the kid that moved
4:31
Speaker 3: furthest away because I was forty five minutes for mom
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Speaker 3: and dad. I've worked retail. I've been a grocery store clerk.
4:39
Speaker 3: I was a photographer inside a kmart for Hole and Mills.
4:44
Speaker 3: And when they were going to cut my health insurance,
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Speaker 3: I decided it was time to get into a jobline
4:50
Speaker 3: that would give me health insurance. And that's what brought
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Speaker 3: me to working in medical. I've been a medical assistant,
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Speaker 3: and I am currently the final it's an admin assistant
5:02
Speaker 3: or the psychiatry and mental health departments. There's a lot
5:05
Speaker 3: of back end bureaucratic needs, paperwork, vacation time, continuing education stuff,
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Speaker 3: and so I am the department Santa. I love my
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Speaker 3: job and love serving the folks that are giving wonderful
5:18
Speaker 3: and needed mental health care to our community.
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Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having us. I'm Tegan, Like
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Speaker 4: you said, I'm the lead out patient chemotherapy scheduler here
5:28
Speaker 4: at UVMMC. And I got into my job after previously
5:32
Speaker 4: working in law, which is where I have a degree,
5:34
Speaker 4: not the one you can actually do something with, but
5:36
Speaker 4: still a degree in law. And the industry of law
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Speaker 4: has just so many miserable, soul sucking problems without a
5:45
Speaker 4: lot of real emotional reward, at least that I was feeling.
5:48
Speaker 4: So I ended up moving into healthcare, which is a
5:52
Speaker 4: place where you can actually make a real difference to
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Speaker 4: real people, and not all of it is couched in
5:58
Speaker 4: a bunch of pseudo Latin. A lot of it is
6:01
Speaker 4: just making real connections with your patients, understanding what their
6:04
Speaker 4: daily lives look like. A lot of what my day
6:07
Speaker 4: to day looks like if you came behind my computer,
6:10
Speaker 4: it would look like I was playing Tetris a lot
6:12
Speaker 4: of the day because I've got the blocks of each
6:15
Speaker 4: person's treatment that we're trying to all stack together to
6:18
Speaker 4: make fit to get as many people as possible safely
6:21
Speaker 4: treated in the amount of time and the amount of
6:24
Speaker 4: space that we have. It's very rewarding. I get to
6:28
Speaker 4: make contact with a lot of different people from across
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Speaker 4: the state. I've got patients in New York, I've got
6:34
Speaker 4: patients in New Hampshire. I've got some patients in Canada.
6:37
Speaker 4: And working here has been really incredibly rewarding. But unfortunately,
6:41
Speaker 4: as time has gone on, over just the past three
6:43
Speaker 4: years that I've been here, sometimes the stress and the
6:49
Speaker 4: weight has started to outweigh that reward in some ways
6:52
Speaker 4: that are really specifically related to the way that our
6:57
Speaker 4: labor as workers here is treated.
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Speaker 2: And I want to like really kind of talk to
7:02
Speaker 2: you all about that at the shop floor, you know,
7:06
Speaker 2: day to day level, but I guess like I need
7:09
Speaker 2: your help here because I want to talk about the
7:12
Speaker 2: crisis that is, you know, happening right now in the
7:16
Speaker 2: UVM Health network, you know, and kind of first we
7:22
Speaker 2: need to help our listeners understand, like what is this
7:25
Speaker 2: crisis exactly? Like what if folks need to understand? Is
7:29
Speaker 2: is it a budget crisis? Are you facing draconian cuts?
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Speaker 2: Is it a shortfall? I guess like we don't have
7:35
Speaker 2: to get too far into the weeds that we lose
7:37
Speaker 2: sight of the whole plot, But like, help us understand
7:41
Speaker 2: what exactly the nature of the crisis that y'all are
7:44
Speaker 2: facing there at UVM is right now.
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Speaker 3: It is incredibly complex and I can kind of scratch
7:51
Speaker 3: the surface. For years, For decades, management at the top
7:57
Speaker 3: was kind of left alone to do what they want,
8:00
Speaker 3: and what they wanted to do was give incredible salaries
8:03
Speaker 3: to the folks at the very top. We went from
8:06
Speaker 3: being Fletcher Allen to University of Vermont Medical Center, and
8:10
Speaker 3: then the health Network was formed. So now the network
8:14
Speaker 3: encompasses five hospitals in Vermont and I think two or
8:18
Speaker 3: maybe three in Northern New York as well. So that
8:22
Speaker 3: necessitated an extra level of administrative folks at the top,
8:27
Speaker 3: and they are not the ones making twenty dollars an
8:30
Speaker 3: hour by any stretch of the imagination. Vermont's really unique
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Speaker 3: that we have what's called the Green Mountain Careboard.
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Speaker 1: It came out.
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Speaker 3: Of the work of activists in twenty eleven in the
8:41
Speaker 3: passing of Act forty eight, which ostensibly created universal healthcare
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Speaker 3: in Vermont. We never had a governor that was able
8:48
Speaker 3: or willing to find funding for that, so instead this
8:52
Speaker 3: advisory board was created and yearly Green Mountain Careboard reviews
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Speaker 3: and either approves or denies budgets hospitals in the state.
9:02
Speaker 3: About three years ago, Green Mountain Care Board really put
9:05
Speaker 3: their foot down. Vermont is the most expensive state in
9:09
Speaker 3: the country to buy or get healthcare, and they said
9:13
Speaker 3: this is insane. UVM health has an obvious monopoly on
9:17
Speaker 3: the state. You folks have been making way too much
9:20
Speaker 3: profit for too long, and now it's going to be
9:22
Speaker 3: a cut. So the budget, instead of having any growth
9:25
Speaker 3: to it, actually had a reduced amount of profit that
9:29
Speaker 3: was allowable. So now that they're not able to charge
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Speaker 3: the most exorbitant prices for literally everything, they are saying,
9:39
Speaker 3: we're losing money every Dayusterity measures need to go into place,
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Speaker 3: and what that looks like is those one hundred and
9:46
Speaker 3: forty cuts and staff just being overworked in almost all locations.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, Melissa has a much more of a bird's eye
9:54
Speaker 4: view of it than I do, because Melissa is much
9:57
Speaker 4: deeper into the daily goings on of the Union, She's
10:00
Speaker 4: much more well briefed than I am. But as far
10:03
Speaker 4: as how I've seen this in my day to day work,
10:07
Speaker 4: it's been, for example, in my clinic, which is the
10:11
Speaker 4: outpatient cancer clinic at the flagship hospital in the network,
10:15
Speaker 4: the scheduling team is about three weeks behind at any
10:18
Speaker 4: given moment, which doesn't necessarily sound like a big deal
10:21
Speaker 4: if what you're generally familiar with as far as healthcare
10:26
Speaker 4: scheduling is just you know, a primary care physicians office.
10:30
Speaker 4: If you're three weeks behind, looking at that, generally it's
10:32
Speaker 4: not going to be a huge deal for scheduling. But
10:36
Speaker 4: here in the outpatient cancer clinic, these are patients who
10:39
Speaker 4: are coming in twice a week, or every single day
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Speaker 4: five days long, once a month, or they're coming in,
10:48
Speaker 4: you know, every other week, which means that if we
10:51
Speaker 4: get three weeks behind, we are operating so far behind
10:56
Speaker 4: the patient's actual reality that it functionally does even makes
11:00
Speaker 4: sense for us to be doing our jobs, because we
11:03
Speaker 4: are working with outdated information that we then have to
11:06
Speaker 4: crosscheck with the more up to date information that we're
11:09
Speaker 4: seeing in the chart. Everything takes longer because we have
11:12
Speaker 4: to do that, we get further and further behind. Patient
11:15
Speaker 4: care falls further and further behind, and we're all very
11:18
Speaker 4: concerned about the safety of the care that we're able
11:21
Speaker 4: to deliver because of this. And this could be solved
11:25
Speaker 4: with safer, better staffing by increasing our numbers by just
11:28
Speaker 4: two or three more people. And we've been refused for
11:31
Speaker 4: months and months and months, even while going through an
11:34
Speaker 4: official grievance process to try to address the issue, we
11:37
Speaker 4: have continued to be denied.
11:39
Speaker 2: Well, I want to ask like one more kind of
11:42
Speaker 2: clarifying question here, right because it seems like, you know,
11:45
Speaker 2: in all the kind of research I was able to
11:47
Speaker 2: do before we started recording this episode, right, like, there's
11:51
Speaker 2: some competing narratives going on here, and that's sort of
11:55
Speaker 2: muddling the picture and making it hard for folks to understand,
11:59
Speaker 2: you know, what's going on here and why it's so egregious.
12:03
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask, like, who is behind the
12:06
Speaker 2: narrative that this is, you know, a three hundred million
12:09
Speaker 2: dollar budget shortfall that requires squeezing like people at the bedside,
12:15
Speaker 2: you know, level people in the you know, like office
12:18
Speaker 2: level and cutting back, you know, the most essential labor
12:23
Speaker 2: and piling more work onto the most essential workers.
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Speaker 3: So there's always yours mine in there's but green Mountain.
12:30
Speaker 3: Careboards saying, you folks have made way too much money
12:34
Speaker 3: off of the mantras for way too long.
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Speaker 1: You need to lower your prices.
12:39
Speaker 3: You've helped is saying, oh my god, we used to
12:44
Speaker 3: make this much money, but now we're only allowed to
12:47
Speaker 3: make this much money. So normally, in my mind, folks,
12:52
Speaker 3: would you know, lower the prices of things. What they've
12:55
Speaker 3: done instead is lower the number of available in patient beds,
13:00
Speaker 3: so they're seeing purer patients, so therefore less money is
13:03
Speaker 3: getting made. And there was a law that went in
13:06
Speaker 3: that said they had to drop their prices on like
13:09
Speaker 3: cancer and fusion drugs because those were just astronomical through
13:12
Speaker 3: the roof. So Careboard says, you're making too much. Hospital
13:17
Speaker 3: says we're not making enough any longer. And from the
13:22
Speaker 3: union's perspective, we're saying this was poor management over decades
13:26
Speaker 3: and you're now asking your lowest paid workers to bear
13:29
Speaker 3: that burden.
13:31
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that sort of how we got
13:34
Speaker 2: here question, right, Because like sadly, this is a story
13:38
Speaker 2: that I have heard from healthcare workers across the country
13:42
Speaker 2: in different contexts. Right. I've talked to workers on the
13:46
Speaker 2: picket line at a private Catholic hospital here in Baltimore
13:52
Speaker 2: saying very similar things. I've interviewed workers on strike at
13:55
Speaker 2: Kaiser Permanente in the Pacific Northwest saying similar things. Workers
14:01
Speaker 2: in Chicago, you know, like at a university healthcare system.
14:05
Speaker 2: There very similar story, right, But but they're the devil
14:08
Speaker 2: is also in the details, and not every story is
14:11
Speaker 2: the same. But it feels like the effects that people
14:14
Speaker 2: are feeling are very similar, which is that you know,
14:18
Speaker 2: workers are being you know, burnt out because they're being
14:21
Speaker 2: asked to do more with less for less, you know,
14:26
Speaker 2: while you know, either like hedge fund type corporations are
14:31
Speaker 2: buying up their hospitals and forcing them to like, you know,
14:34
Speaker 2: speed up productions for the sake of more profits, or
14:37
Speaker 2: you know, you got a system, like your guys' system
14:39
Speaker 2: where you're kind of being forced to claw back you know,
14:43
Speaker 2: like your operations to sustain you know, like an unreasonably
14:48
Speaker 2: poorly like managed from the top down system. Again, those
14:52
Speaker 2: are different situations, but the effect is very similar on
14:55
Speaker 2: the workers and the patients. But as you said, Melissa,
14:59
Speaker 2: like that didn't happen overnight, and so I wanted to ask, like,
15:03
Speaker 2: how the hell did it happen and how did you all,
15:07
Speaker 2: as you know, like rank and file workers, you know,
15:10
Speaker 2: experience this over that time.
15:13
Speaker 3: A fact I heard once that really blew my mind
15:16
Speaker 3: was most hospitals used to be owned by like the doctors.
15:20
Speaker 3: They were kind of co ops that the doctors owned,
15:23
Speaker 3: and so if something terrible happened, you know whose door
15:27
Speaker 3: to knock on to complain. But letting hedge fund managers,
15:32
Speaker 3: letting private equity into healthcare, and even in Vermont UVM
15:37
Speaker 3: Health is a nonprofit network, but letting business managers run
15:42
Speaker 3: health decisions does not work.
15:45
Speaker 1: And every other industrialized country.
15:48
Speaker 3: In the world has figured it out that it's most
15:50
Speaker 3: effective not to be paying these insurance middlemen to do
15:54
Speaker 3: nothing but mostly deny folks. Our government's capable of administering Medicare,
16:01
Speaker 3: which folks are generally happy with. With Medicaid, folks are
16:04
Speaker 3: generally happy with. And this introduction of a business element
16:09
Speaker 3: into health is where things went wrong. To be totally honest,
16:13
Speaker 3: folks are making money off of something that should not
16:16
Speaker 3: be a money making enterprise.
16:19
Speaker 4: I mean, I think what it boils down to your point, Melissa,
16:22
Speaker 4: is the fact that hedge fund managers, extremely well paid
16:27
Speaker 4: executives in the healthcare industry are It's kind of like
16:31
Speaker 4: the final frontier of late stage capitalism, right, Like, this
16:34
Speaker 4: is the last way that you can profit off of
16:37
Speaker 4: not only your workforce, but the physical bodies of your
16:41
Speaker 4: workforce and the people around you. UVM Health has a
16:45
Speaker 4: monopoly on healthcare and Vermont, which means that all of
16:48
Speaker 4: their workers are here receiving care from them for the vast,
16:52
Speaker 4: vast majority, which means that not only are we struggling
16:57
Speaker 4: to get them to pay us wages that are meaningful
17:01
Speaker 4: in the economy of Vermont, which is total trash garbage
17:04
Speaker 4: right now, but there's also the fact that we are
17:07
Speaker 4: functionally handcuffed to whatever decisions they're making about what our
17:10
Speaker 4: healthcare is going to be. Like I know, and I'm
17:13
Speaker 4: not alone in this. My fiance and I have been
17:16
Speaker 4: having to have really serious talks about when we get married,
17:21
Speaker 4: what's going to happen to his healthcare? Is it going
17:24
Speaker 4: to be worth it? Are we going to have to
17:26
Speaker 4: delay our wedding I don't know when I'm going to
17:31
Speaker 4: be getting married until we get a new contract for
17:33
Speaker 4: our union, because I don't know what my healthcare is
17:36
Speaker 4: going to look like. I don't know what guarantees I'm
17:38
Speaker 4: going to have, and I'm not going to be able
17:40
Speaker 4: to get married if I have to pay, you know,
17:42
Speaker 4: eight hundred dollars a month for me and my fiance
17:45
Speaker 4: to both have care as chronically ill people.
17:48
Speaker 2: Jesus man, It's just like, I don't know how people
17:51
Speaker 2: can hear stories like that from everybody everywhere, all over
17:57
Speaker 2: the place, and we all just accept it, like, well,
18:01
Speaker 2: you know, I guess that's just the way things got
18:02
Speaker 2: to be. But that's not the way things got to be.
18:07
Speaker 2: And I do want to talk about, like, in the end,
18:12
Speaker 2: what can be done, what can folks listening do. But
18:16
Speaker 2: by way of getting there, I wanted to kind of
18:18
Speaker 2: bring things back down to that worker and patient eye level.
18:22
Speaker 2: Can you tell us how since those initial cuts, what
18:26
Speaker 2: this is translating to for you know, frontline workers providing
18:30
Speaker 2: healthcare and for patients seeking healthcare.
18:34
Speaker 3: Patients seeking healthcare are definitely experiencing weights.
18:37
Speaker 1: They know it.
18:39
Speaker 3: They know why when my husband goes to his primary
18:42
Speaker 3: care that's part of the network. There's one person to
18:45
Speaker 3: check in and check out folks in an office with
18:48
Speaker 3: like twenty five providers. You're waiting longer when you call
18:52
Speaker 3: in to try to talk to a nurse to get
18:54
Speaker 3: a prescription refilled from your primary care. It's just more work,
19:02
Speaker 3: more stress. You know that the cuts happened, and it's
19:06
Speaker 3: so weird how they always seem to happen a couple
19:08
Speaker 3: of months before bargaining. So we have been in bargaining
19:15
Speaker 3: and when we did our pre bargaining survey, we're doing
19:21
Speaker 3: combined bargaining between our support staff unit and the technical
19:25
Speaker 3: Professionals unit of the VFNHP Nurses Union.
19:28
Speaker 1: So you're radiologists, you're.
19:33
Speaker 3: Respiratory therapists, those sort of folks. But the layoffs really
19:41
Speaker 3: also energized our members to see that this is why
19:45
Speaker 3: we're bargaining. And when we did our pre bargaining survey
19:50
Speaker 3: thirty three hundred members across the board, the priority was
19:54
Speaker 3: safe staffing. And our folks are not in great economic shape.
19:59
Speaker 3: We know wages are a thing, but we work in
20:03
Speaker 3: healthcare because we care about our patients and because we
20:05
Speaker 3: know we are the patients as well, and that was
20:09
Speaker 3: far and away.
20:10
Speaker 1: What folks cared about.
20:12
Speaker 3: That when community members are coming to us that we
20:15
Speaker 3: are safely staffed and they're not going to get worse
20:18
Speaker 3: because they came to you VMMC for care.
20:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
20:22
Speaker 4: I think that the staffing is really the critical issue.
20:25
Speaker 4: And some of those layoffs did affect union members, and
20:29
Speaker 4: some of them were non unionized staff. For example, folks
20:33
Speaker 4: in IT, folks who were in m GET, which is
20:35
Speaker 4: Medical Group Education and Training. Those are the folks who
20:38
Speaker 4: train newly oncoming doctors how to use our health record
20:43
Speaker 4: system which is byzantine and complex. So you know, it
20:48
Speaker 4: is the money that the people at the top are
20:50
Speaker 4: getting is never going to trickle down, but the consequences
20:53
Speaker 4: that the people at the top impose trickles down. So
20:55
Speaker 4: it takes longer for these doctors to get appropriately onboarded.
20:58
Speaker 4: It takes longer for them get the hang of how
21:01
Speaker 4: things are supposed to be done in these systems, so
21:03
Speaker 4: that things are going through workflows correctly, so that people
21:06
Speaker 4: like me are making sure that you are getting scheduled
21:09
Speaker 4: out for your treatments appropriately and safely. People in IT
21:13
Speaker 4: getting laid off. I have had a ticket out for
21:17
Speaker 4: a fax machine that my unit uses to get looked
21:21
Speaker 4: at since April and nothing has happened about it. And
21:24
Speaker 4: that doesn't sound like a big deal except for the
21:26
Speaker 4: fact that not all outside facilities will accept electronic faxes,
21:30
Speaker 4: and that means that we are not able to until
21:34
Speaker 4: that gets addressed, send imaging orders to those other hospitals
21:39
Speaker 4: because they won't accept them because they're only faxable right now,
21:42
Speaker 4: because we don't have a fax machine, which can result
21:45
Speaker 4: in patients getting delayed care in something as important as
21:49
Speaker 4: getting imaging done to figure out if their chemotherapy is
21:52
Speaker 4: working or not. It's just it's difficult. The layoffs and
21:58
Speaker 4: the threat of more layoffs has created did such an
22:01
Speaker 4: environment of like paranoia and distrust, which is the exact
22:06
Speaker 4: opposite thing that anyone needs. We're already all struggling enough,
22:10
Speaker 4: but it's just created an incredibly difficult work environment, from
22:13
Speaker 4: the things that are tangible, like the stupid fact machine,
22:16
Speaker 4: to wondering every day when you come into work, is
22:19
Speaker 4: this the day where I find out that I don't
22:21
Speaker 4: have a job anymore and that my patients are going
22:23
Speaker 4: to call in and just end up waiting on the
22:27
Speaker 4: line for three hours to get a simple answer, So.
22:30
Speaker 2: Where do things stand now and what can be done
22:34
Speaker 2: about this? And what can anyone who is listening to
22:38
Speaker 2: this conversation right now do to help the.
22:42
Speaker 3: Base of the problem is the for profit healthcare system.
22:45
Speaker 3: That just has to be the foundation that we're working from.
22:50
Speaker 3: In our bargaining, Like I said, priority safe staffing, we're
22:54
Speaker 3: fighting for safe staffing committees. The hospital came proposing takebacks
23:00
Speaker 3: from our first contract, so that is one of the
23:04
Speaker 3: places where we're kind of far apart. But one of
23:07
Speaker 3: the things we're also doing on top of joint bargaining
23:12
Speaker 3: is a common good platform. We're asking for protections for
23:16
Speaker 3: our immigrant coworkers. If they get detained, they don't lose
23:19
Speaker 3: their jobs positioned, they don't lose their health insurance. They
23:23
Speaker 3: get time off to go to these appointments when they
23:25
Speaker 3: need to, even if it's short notice, like we know
23:27
Speaker 3: is happening more and more often. We're asking the hospital
23:31
Speaker 3: to join. Our local community group is Migrant Justice, and
23:35
Speaker 3: they have a Milk with Dignity program to only source
23:38
Speaker 3: milk from farms in Vermont that treat their workers appropriately,
23:42
Speaker 3: give them safe housing, give them safe work conditions, hate
23:45
Speaker 3: them fairly, and we are also that the hospital, in
23:50
Speaker 3: all its poverty, stop using it's very high paid lobbyists
23:53
Speaker 3: and publicity folks to fight us in our for universal healthcare.
24:01
Speaker 3: Back forty eight is on the books. We intend to
24:03
Speaker 3: get it funded and enforced. And every time we've tried
24:09
Speaker 3: in the past, the hospital, which is a huge economic
24:12
Speaker 3: driver in the state, has had their people at the
24:14
Speaker 3: state House pushing back, pushing back, and the time has
24:18
Speaker 3: come to stop. We cannot cut our way out of this.
24:22
Speaker 3: And I would encourage everybody listening if they don't have
24:24
Speaker 3: a union that they can get involved in and push
24:27
Speaker 3: them to fight for universal health care, get involved with
24:30
Speaker 3: a grassroots organization. They are just literally everywhere. Folks see
24:34
Speaker 3: this problem, and we know what the solution is. It's
24:37
Speaker 3: a single payer healthcare system.
24:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean what Melissa said, What it comes down
24:41
Speaker 4: to is that the for profit healthcare system is a
24:45
Speaker 4: functionally a vampire that is sucking us out of money
24:50
Speaker 4: without any real significant payoff. I don't know anyone who
24:53
Speaker 4: has gone from being on Medicaid or Medicare to being
24:57
Speaker 4: on private health insurance and gone, wow, this is so much.
25:04
Speaker 2: All right, gang, that's going to wrap things up for
25:06
Speaker 2: us today. I want to thank our guests Melissa Lavallei,
25:10
Speaker 2: Secretary of UVMMC Support Staff United and VP of Healthcare
25:15
Speaker 2: for AFT Vermont, and Teagan Cook, lead outpatient chemotherapy schedule
25:20
Speaker 2: at her hospital and a chief steward in UVMMC Support
25:24
Speaker 2: Staff United. And of course I want to thank you
25:27
Speaker 2: all for listening and I want to thank you for caring.
25:30
Speaker 2: We'll see y'all back here for another episode of Working People,
25:33
Speaker 2: and in the meantime, go explore all the great work
25:36
Speaker 2: that we're doing at the Real News Network, where we
25:39
Speaker 2: do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories
25:43
Speaker 2: from the front lines of struggle. Check us out across
25:45
Speaker 2: our YouTube channel, our podcast feeds, our website, and our
25:49
Speaker 2: different social media pages, and help us do more work
25:53
Speaker 2: like this by going to therealnews dot com, forward slash,
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Speaker 2: donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys,
26:00
Speaker 2: it really makes a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take care
26:04
Speaker 2: of yourselves, take care of each other, Solidarity forever.
26:10
Speaker 5: When my face you.
26:11
Speaker 2: No longer see.
26:13
Speaker 5: I live on Yes.
26:14
Speaker 1: I live on.
26:16
Speaker 5: Wherever you go, You're going to roll in you your
26:20
Speaker 5: own a song. I live on Yes. I live on
26:24
Speaker 5: whatever hungry hunger? Are we just as hungless hunger than me?
26:29
Speaker 5: This song I live on Yes. I live on, Well
26:34
Speaker 5: mean things are happening.
26:36
Speaker 1: In this land?
26:37
Speaker 5: To read a song, I live on, Yes. I live
26:40
Speaker 5: on whatever the book mean things that happening in this
26:44
Speaker 5: land is read. I live on Yes. I live on
26:49
Speaker 5: whatever the video tay or media showing.
26:53
Speaker 1: I live on.
26:54
Speaker 3: Yes.
26:54
Speaker 5: I live on if I have help make this a
26:58
Speaker 5: better word than you did, I live on Yes. I
27:02
Speaker 5: live on. When my body is silent and hit something
27:05
Speaker 5: long agreed, I live on Yes. I live with my
27:12
Speaker 5: songs and one a red. I live on Yes.
27:16
Speaker 3: I live on
27:22
Speaker 4: H