News Post Editorial (September 22, 1959)

Refusal of the Johns Hopkins Hospital management to recognize an AFL-CIO unit as bargaining representative of some 1,100 of its nonprofessional employes is fully understandable.

Direction by any collective outside influence in so vital an area as services to the sick and injured opens undesirable vistas.

This despite the union's assertion of the willingness of workers to enter into a binding agreement never to disrupt work schedules.

But the hospital's statement that average pay of those in the group is 90 cents an hour and that 85 of them are getting the beginning wage of 75 cents an hour attracts notice. It cites fringe benefits it values at between 6 1/2 and 15 1/2 cents an hour.

The hospital says the scale "compares favorably" with the pay of those in similar occupations. It gives no figures in substantiation and none readily are available.

We hope the comparison is erroneous, for the hospital's scale does not indicate even near adequate living wages. At 90 cents an hour for the 40-hour week the gross cash pay is $36. At 75 cents it is $30. Fringe benefits are valuable, but they do not provide basic home necessities.

Modest pay increases were granted for the current year. The fact that the hospital is operating at a deficit does not mitigate the personal financial situation of the workers.

Perhaps a more substantial pay scale is indicated by the hospital's own figures.

The dispute between Hopkins and Local 491 has thus far been carried out by . . . Long Distance . . .through official and rather barbed letters. In a situation that could drastically affect the community, there has not yet been a personal meeting between the two primary figures -- Dr. Russell A. Nelson, director of the hospital, and Oliver W. Singleton, director of the AFL-CIO regional council. They have never met, yet the strength of their wills--representing two vastly different philosophies--may ultimately decide whether there is to be a hospital strike in Baltimore.

A private, quiet meeting between these two individuals--both intelligent men of integrity--would go far to clear the air. A controversy of this magnitude needs at least mutual understanding between opponents.