Local 1199 Union Leaflet

A NEW DAY

 Baltimore Hospital Workers

are looking towards a new day -- a day without poverty –

a day which will bring them

decent wages, good working conditions,

job security

and, above all,

respect and dignity.

The National Organizing Committee

of Hospital and Nursing Home Employees

is building a union for

Baltimore Hospital Workers

which will bring them

freedom, dignity, and respect.

All Hospital Workers

are invited to a special meeting to launch

 this great organizing drive:

 Date: Thursday, February 27, 1969 Time: 7:00 P.M.

 Place: National Organizing Committee / 305 W. Monument Street / Baltimore, Maryland

DOCTOR BACK UNION'S DRIVE AT HOSPITALS

Liberal Unit Supports Employees' Right To Organize

by Frederick P. McGehan

      A liberal group of doctors, nurses and medical students gave its endorsement yesterday to a drive by a labor union to organize workers in certain Baltimore hospitals.

      Yesterday's statement by the Medical Committee for Human rights represents the first measure of support for the union from an organized segment of the city's medical profession.

      "We support the right of the union to organize hospital employees," said Dr. Thomas C. Washburn, co-chairman of the committee, which has more than 200 members.

      "We feel this is a basic civil liberty regardless of the fact that the hospital is a non-profit institution," Dr. Washburn continued.

      Although the group gave unqualified endorsement for the union's fight to organize, it did not give full support to some of the union's demands, which include $100-a-week starting minimum wages.

      "This support of the union implies support for the union in its future negotiations with the hospitals but does not commit us to support the specific demands of the union," Dr. Wasserman concluded.

      Dr. Washburn is associate medical director of the Sinai-Druid Health Clinic and is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical School.

      About 1,460 non-professional workers at the Johns Hopkins Hospital will be eligible to vote Thursday and Friday on whether they want to be represented by Local 1199E of the Hospital and Nursing Home Employees Union (AFL-CIO).

      In an election last Friday the union won the right to represent non-professional employees at Lutheran Hospital. A third representation election will be held September 5 at North Charles General Hospital.

      Dr. Washburn estimated that between 50 and 65 of his organization's members are associated with the Hopkins medical institutions.

      The medical committee's statement came on the eve of an expected visit by Mrs. Coretta Scott King to urge the Hopkins workers to vote for the union.

      Mrs. King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, the slain civil rights leader, is expected to hold a press conference at 12:30 P.M. today and then to greet workers at the hospital's Monument Street entrance from 2:30 P.M. to 3:45 P.M.

      She is honorary chairman of the union's national organizing committee and participated in a recent 114-day strike against two hospitals in Charleston, S.C.

      Dr. Washburn admitted that his group's statement is "not as strong as the union would want" and said this is primarily because the committee's membership is a "mixed bag," with some members holding stronger views than others.

      The Medical Committee on Human rights is a national organization of liberal medical professionals, which was formed several years ago by doctors working on civil rights campaigns in the South.

      The Baltimore chapter has been active in criticizing the state Medicaid program, is supporting the Man Alive methadone-maintenance program, and in providing a "medical presence" at various peace demonstrations, including the protests at the trial of the Catonsville Nine.

      There was relatively little union activity at the Hopkins hospital yesterday. Union organizers passed out flyers stressing the victory at Lutheran Hospital; management supporters handed out copies of sheets listing the wages and benefits given by the hospital.

      One young intern, dressed in white with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, slowly shook his head as he read a management poster at the Monument Street entrance.

      It urged workers to vote "for no dues, for no strikes, for no union rules . . . Vote no union."

      The young man, who identified himself as a spring graduate of the medical school, commented: "Whether you're for or against the union, I think there could have been a more mature approach [to winning the employees' loyalties]"

      Daryl B. Matthews, a second-year medical student and an active supporter of the union, lamented the fact that few of his fellow students have given their overt support. "I couldn't get any support from students," he said.

      Mr. Matthews also pointed out that few of the white maintenance workers at the Hopkins have joined the union, which is predominantly Negro. He estimated that there are 200 white workers eligible to vote.

      One white maintenance workers in a khaki uniform, encountered on an elevator, dismissed the union as having "too many racial overtones."

Racism Held Bar to Labor:

Hurts Organizing Program, Union Head Says

The Sun, Baltimore

(November 27, 1970)

            Racism among both white and black workers has hurt union organizing at hospitals in Baltimore, according to the head of a hospital employees local.

            Fred A. Punch, president of Local 1199E, Hospital and Nursing Home Employees Union,         AFL-CIO, in reply to recent questions from a group of Johns Hopkins University students, said they could be of help in labor organizing drives.

            If you really want to do something, cut off your beards, cut off your beards, cut off your [African] bushes, take off your dashikis. You've got to look like someone working people can relate to', he has told members of AWARE, a student group active in civil rights.

            But Mr. Punch, who has been successful in organizing about 7,000 non-professional employees at nine hospitals and several nursing homes the past year, said the normal problems of unionizing workers have become complicated by racist attitudes.

            Whites at many of the hospitals refuse to join the black-led union, said Mr. Punch, himself a Negro. For example, he said, the union organized about 1,500 employees, mostly black, at Johns Hopkins Hospital but some 2,500 others mostly white, refused to join.

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posted 24 July 2008