GMDSA Stands with VFNHP Techs and UVMMC Support Staff
“We know we're stronger together, and it's going to take all of us fighting for a healthy Vermont we can afford.”
UVMMC Union members stand in solidarity demanding new contracts with the hospital
Photo Credit: AFT Vermont
Last week’s decision from the executives of the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVM-MC) to cut nearly 200 additional healthcare employees is yet another attack on workers and a continued abrogation of University of Vermont (UVM) Health’s duty to care for patients in Vermont. Previous cuts had already resulted in unsafe staffing levels and the announced closing of an entire patient facing general medicine unit among other egregious cuts to staffing will put the largest hospital in the state in a situation where incidents that could result in the death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm of a patient or staff member become not just very likely but inevitable. The budgetary struggles of this healthcare crisis in our state have been caused by years of administrative bloat at UVM Health. Putting the costs of this crisis on the workers who care very deeply for the patients is not a sustainable solution.
We, the members of the Green Mountain chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, stand by the VFNHP Techs and UVMM SSU Unions in solidarity during their bargaining. We call for UVM-MC to bargain in good faith and stop putting the brunt of their shocking mismanagement on the backs of the staff working tirelessly to care for our community. This is the result of a broken healthcare system, but there is a path forward that works for all Vermonters, not just those at the top. As the largest healthcare provider in the state, UVM Health has a responsibility to work with legislators and the Green Mountain Care Board to seek actual solutions that center patients and staff, particularly committing to Universal Healthcare for All.
UVM Health executives have once again chosen profits over people. Instead of reallocating the salaries of unelected multi-millionaire bureaucrats to direct patient care and essential healthcare workers, execs have once again protected their ill gotten gains and their class of elites from the third round of job massacres in two years. This round of unnecessary austerity, layoffs, cuts, and closures, means that some patients will die prematurely and that the quality of care will again decrease.
The drive for austerity in our nation and in our state is bipartisan and comes from the ruling class who insist on giving themselves tax breaks and further control over more aspects of our lives and economy. While the ruling class refuses to play by the rules, blatantly committing insider trading, crypto and betting market scams, and many other types of fraud, they will force workers to pay for every penny of their unending theft through cuts to healthcare, housing, and social services. Endless wars and a sprawling network of 700 military bases around the world now costs us $1 trillion annually and they're pushing for a $1.5 trillion annual Dept of War budget.
A workers' democracy would spend that money on housing, healthcare, and social services like social security, education, eldercare, and childcare. Every developed country on earth won universal healthcare through the militant wing of their labor movement. And that's what our labor movement and actually-existing unions must do today. Instead of staying shackled to our employers' health insurance companies, Vermont unions must join the growing coalition of unions led by AFT-VT and NEA to fight for single payer healthcare funded by taxing the rich.
Ultimately healthcare workers must run every aspect of healthcare especially its hiring, firing, governance, investment, growth, and innovation. Healthcare workers must run every hospital, clinic, device manufacturer, and drug company according to the needs of people not the profits of billionaires. In the meantime, taxing the rich to defend against bipartisan cuts to healthcare is the immediate task before us. Join DSA to make that happen.
SOLIDARITY FOREVER!!!
