AFT/Vermont Nurses Union Wins Reinstatement of Part-Time Employee

Attorney James Hykel convinced a neutral arbitrator to reinstate a per diem, or part-time nurse represented by Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5221, AFT. Attorney David Rome provided advice throughout the grievance process.

Here, the University of Vermont Medical Center (VMC) terminated the Grievant, an eight-year employee, because he failed to work the minimum number of hours required to maintain per diem employment.

Part-time or on-call nurses at VMC were required to work at least 288 hours in a year in order to maintain per diem status. He actually worked 287.25 hours -- 45 minutes shy of the minimum. Illness and weather prevented the nurse's ability to work in the first part of the year. But he made aggressive efforts to work later on, and vigilantly tracked his hours reflected on his pay stubs. By December 2013, the pay stubs showed he had worked 275.5 hours. His final two 12-hour shifts scheduled before January, led him to conclude his total hours would be 300.

Two months later, the VMC realized the staffing office made an error in 12 hours credited to the Grievant. The VMC terminated the Grievant for being 45 minutes shy of the minimum.

The Arbitrator agreed with the Union that just cause protections applied to per diem employees. He determined that VMC's arguments to the contrary were completely unpersuasive, especially where VMC considered factors beyond Grievant's hours worked in deciding to terminatw him.

The Arbitrator agreed that Grievant was 45 minutes shy of the requirement but that management was to blame for the predicament. He wrote, "It would be unjust, i.e., fundamentally unfair, to hold the grievant accountable for a management inputting error of which he was unaware and for which he had no involvement or responsibility and which led him to believe that he would more than fulfill his minimum hours requirement when he worked the two 12 hour shifts in December 2013."

He concluded that the VMC's termination of the nurse violated just cause protections of the AFT/VFNHP contract. He ordered the VMC to reinstate the nurse and pay him 288 hours in lost compensation.