A strike authorization vote became a ratification vote for the UFT’s Visiting Nurse Service of New York chapter when an 11th-hour agreement was put before the membership on Jan. 29. The VNS members overwhelmingly approved the new contract two days before the old contract was set to expire.

The two-year agreement achieves exactly what members in a contract survey told the union they wanted: to protect their defined-benefit pension, to preserve their no-cost health insurance and to get a raise.

“I’m supporting this contract because there have been no changes to my pension fund, no changes to my health benefits and a raise in the salary,” said Juanita Doyle-Howard, a VNS nurse who came to the union’s meeting and cast her ballot.

“This is quite an accomplishment,” said Anne Goldman, the UFT vice president for non-Department of Education employees who heads the Federation of Nurses/UFT, as she surveyed the hundreds of voting members. “The employer’s goal was single-minded: to destroy the union. They tried to divide senior staff from new hires, to divide married members from singles, to incite cultural differences and to take away our pensions.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said the contract negotiations were difficult. “It looked like we were heading into a strike,” he said. “But by standing together and not backing down, we were able to prevail.”

The pact, which covers more than 2,000 registered nurses employed by the home health care agency, continues the Federation of Nurses/UFT’s 34-year tradition of delivering on-time contracts after preparing for a strike as the contract deadline approached.

Under the settlement, VNS registered nurses will receive a 1.5 percent salary increase on April 1 of this year, a second 1 percent increase on Jan. 1, 2017, and a third 1 percent increase on July 1, 2017.

“We got an incredible settlement, thanks to the solidarity of the VNS team and the leadership of the UFT,” said VNS Chapter Leader Raquel Webb-Geddes. “We stood firm and got the nurses what they needed.”

As the ratification vote took place, negotiating team members spoke of the sleepless nights and endless days of negotiations.

They told their colleagues they were buoyed by the union’s support as they faced down a difficult employer. The employer, the negotiating team members said, tried multiple tactics to divide the union’s negotiators, even going so far as to leave the negotiating committee alone in the bargaining room for 24 hours in an effort to allow exhaustion to overwhelm the committee members and provoke them to fight among themselves.

“We have gone the extra mile to represent everyone here,” said Simone McGowan, a rank-and-file member of the negotiating committee.

Casserene Cassells, the Federation of Nurses/UFT borough coordinator for the Bronx, summed up the sequence of events: “We spoke. They did not want to listen. We made them listen.”

Angela Maloney, the Federation of Nurses/UFT’s VNS representative for Manhattan, described how the VNS negotiators arrived at the bargaining table with thick notebooks, while Goldman sat down without so much as a piece of paper.

“Anne sat down there so eloquently, and she told them what she had to tell them and she brought them to their knees,” said Maloney. “It was tough. They were trying to break the union.”

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