ELEANOR ROOSEVELT SUPPORTS 1199

Bargaining Rights Asked For Hospitals

AFL-CIO News Washington, D.C.

(January 9, 1960)

New York -- More than 200 prominent New Yorkers have urged Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and the state legislature to provide collective bargaining rights and the protection of unemployment and disability benefits for 115,000 non-medical workers in voluntary, non-profit hospitals.

            Among the signers of the statement, which called for "first-class citizenship rights" for hospital workers, were 56 members of the legislature, 13 congressmen and six New York City councilmen.

            Thirty-four religious leaders, including ministers, priests and rabbis, signed the statement. It was made public by Local 1199 of the Retail, Wholesale & Dept. Store Union, which struck seven New York City hospitals for 46 days last spring to win partial union recognition.

            The community leaders, including Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, pointed out that the "low wages and poor working conditions" prevailing in the hospitals compel workers to live in slums, to seek supplementary relief assistance from city and state welfare agencies and pose a threat to "the health of the entire community."

            Protesting the exemption of hospital employees from state labor and social laws, the signers called for "prompt action to extend to hospital workers the rights enjoyed by other workers and thus end their present status of second-class citizenship."

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posted 24 July 2008