Hospital workers fight for Milk with Dignity
Posted Thu, 06/18/2026 - 6:11pm
Thousands of workers at Vermont’s largest hospital are negotiating a new contract. As they push for liveable wages and safe staffing in the workplace, hospital workers are also negotiating a set of “Common Good” proposals. Among those demands: that the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) join the Milk with Dignity Program and buy its milk from farms that treat workers fairly.
Hospital workers at UVMMC are using their collective power to support the struggle of farmworkers for rights and dignity. Understanding that their employer is one of the most powerful and influential organizations in the state of Vermont, workers have committed to a strategy to “bargain for the common good,” to push the hospital to be a leader on a broad range of issues: quality patient care, healthcare for all, immigrant rights, and protections for worker organizing.
Migrant Justice recently stood alongside hospital workers organized in two labor unions: Vermont Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals and UVMMC Support Staff United. Together, we announced the Common Good Bargaining Platform before walking into the hospital to begin contract negotiations with hospital management.
The thousands of workers represented by the two union locals have joined forces to advance an ambitious platform. They are calling on Vermont’s largest hospital – and one of the state’s largest employers – to support safe staffing measures for quality patient care; to advocate for universal healthcare legislation; to ensure the hospital protects patients and staff from ICE detention; and to join Milk with Dignity.
By joining the Program, UVMMC would become the first institution committing to sourcing milk from farms enrolled in Milk with Dignity. The milk that UVMMC serves to thousands of people every day in hospital rooms and cafeterias would come from farms that comply with Milk with Dignity’s farmworker-authored Code of Conduct. Under the Program, farms must provide minimum standards for wages, hours, housing, health and safety conditions, and much more. Workers have enforceable protections against harassment, discrimination, retaliation, violence, and abuse.
Hospital workers’ commitment to include Milk with Dignity in their bargaining platform is the latest front in farmworkers’ campaigns to expand the transformational Program. Last week, we announced the launch of Cheese with Dignity, a new product in collaboration with Vermont Way Foods. The week before, we shared a breakthrough in the campaign pushing Hannaford Supermarket to join Milk with Dignity.
Despite the unceasing attacks from the federal government, farmworkers continue to organize to protect their rights and improve their conditions. The solidarity from hospital workers is helping to push that fight forward.