Hospital Workers Knock at the Door

...A social worker arose to say, "Don't let them tell you it's only non-professional workers on strike...

...Mr...

...Their rage and fervor in fight...

...The several bitter scuffles that broke out among strikers and policemen sprang from deeper passions...

...The term used to describe the settlement that the hospital directors finally agreed to was "backdoor recognition" of the union...

...District Judge...

...They roared back, "Hallelujah...

...The union gave security and we got more stable people...

...The difference between the hospital bosses and the bosses of the past lay not in their proclamations of anti-union sentiment (the hospital bosses were as adamant against a union as were the bosses in the days of the Knights of Labor) but in their personal backgrounds and records...

...Rather than the profiteering bosses of old who were fighting the union in order to grind more pennies from the sweat of their workers, these were volunteer citizens helping to operate non-profit medical institutions for the welfare of the community...

...It is hard to think that the men who wrote it would have had the guts to read it before the audience of strik ing workers...

...Within a few moments, the line to the microphone was jammed...

...The hospital directors have pointed out the complex financial burdens of the institutions, and said that the whole thing had to do with the economics of modern medicine, rather than the issues of rich people and poor people, colored people and white people...

...David N. Edelstein (Beth Israel Hospital), author of The History and Scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act, U.S...

...The plight of these several thousand striking workers, from the ranks of the 30,000 employees who do the laundry, kitchen, maintenance, service, and laboratory work in New York's 81 "voluntary" hospitals (supported mainly by charity) drew both sympathy and shock from most of the city's citizens, especially union members, and the local union leaders who like to refer to New York as a "labor city...

...To the end, the hospital management refused to grant outright recognition to the union, and the settlement provided principally for the less than revolutionary concessions of raising wages to at least a minimum of $1 an hour, providing for impartial grievance machinery and arbitration through outside representatives of the workers' choosing, and a review board of hospital and court-appointed members which will take up requests for improved standards in the future...

...Evidently they saw no discrepancy between their past actions of philanthropy and humanitarianism and their battle to keep the hospital workers—many of whom earn so little that they hold down full-time jobs and still have to have supplementary relief from the city—from choosing a bona fide union to represent them...

...In those that are abiding by the terms of the settlement, Davis said that "there is no way for the union to resolve anything directly with management...

...Many of them are philanthropists, humanitarians, and, in many cases, "Liberals...

...Throughout the strike, the workers' meetings were alive with the kind of militant spirit that has rarely been seen in labor since the thirties—and indeed, the issues involved in a strike have rarely been so basic since then...

...It is maintaining 12 organizers who are working to enlarge and solidify the organizations that exist already and start new ones in the still unorganized hospitals...

...Roughly 80 per cent of the 30,000 workers of New York's voluntary hospitals are Negroes and Puerto Ricans, and in the first week of the strike, Harry Van Arsdale said that the withholding of union recognition to these workers was a "slap at an abused minority...

...His face reflected such ecstatic contentment that a casual observer might wonder if there weren't perhaps a couple of jiggers of gin in the mixture...

...ALTHOUGH WAGES have gone up in the seven hospitals that were struck, the majority of the 18 hospitals are going on much as they have in the past...

...They were mostly Negroes and Puerto Ricans, their ages ranging from the teens to a time at which the counting of years is superfluous, the faces beaten and drawn beyond any other category but Old...

...When underpaid workers at several of the hospitals were kicked out of hospital-owned rooming houses because they had gone on strike, Mr...

...It is hard to imagine that anyone who followed the strike very closely or attended any of the workers' meetings could have found the charge ridiculous...

...Some are still paying less than $1 an hour...

...Harry Pearlman (Brooklyn Jewish Hospital), trustee of Brandeis University, Federation of Jewish Philanthropies...

...In fact, Dr...

...They gathered for six weeks in basement rooms and rented halls near the hospitals that employed them, fanning themselves against the heat and the boredom, rising up to shuffle into place on the picket lines, coming periodically back to strike headquarters to claim the bread and canned food that union sympathizers contributed during the seige...

...A Negro lady who barely reached the mike stood on her toes and said in a high, joyous voice: "Brothers and Sisters—Hallelujah...

...When the votes on the proposal were cast and being counted (it was voted down overwhelmingly), the floor was opened to strikers who wanted to say a word or so to their fellow workers...

...The audience clapped and cheered in affirmation, and there were shouts of "Yes, yes...

...The economics are of course at the heart of what set things off, but once set off, the issues were far more deep and personal than questions of Blue Cross rates and patient payment...

...A worker from Brooklyn Jewish said, "We'll walk till our shoes wear out...

...The machinery for arbitration is unwieldy and it is an impractical way of handling labor relations...

...It showed a gentleman of the New Leisure stretched in a hammock, drinking a pink frothy mixture that appeared to be an ice cream soda...

...Perhaps one of the many things the strike of the hospital workers proved is that the clean, conscienceeasing rites of professional Charity are no substitutes for the more difficult and awkward procedures of allowing the poor to join together and speak and act for what they need...

...Typically revealing of the spirit of the striking workers was the meeting they held after roughly three weeks on strike, to vote on the first proposals of settlement offered by the Hospital Association...

...In the same article, Ray Emberg, president of the American Hospital Association and director of the University of Minnesota hospital was quoted as saying, "The calibre of the workers has improved since the union came in...

...There is a real desire on the part of these workers to build a union," Davis said...

...Sinai Hospital and workers, with their picket signs proclaiming the desire of a decent life, joined in the lines of march and had to be torn away by policemen...

...The city-supported hospitals have been organized for a number of years, and the voluntary Maimonides hospital, organized for several years under Local 1199, as well as Montefibre, which was organized by that union the first of this year, have gone on about their business without any lack of efficiency or danger to patients since recognizing the union...

...Davis claims that the union has grown since the strike ended, and now has roughly 5,000 members in the hospitals...

...It is rather to illustrate the curious fact that the men whose proclamations on unionism sounded like Henry Ford in the battle of Willow Run are past presidents of the Urban league, authors of books on Fair Labor Practices, directors of Settlement Houses, Boys Clubs, and Philanthropic Leagues...

...These striking workers, organized by Local 1199 of the Retail Drug Employees Unions (an affiliate of the RWDSU) commonly averaged $34 a week, without unemployment and disability benefits, without seniority, without union representation, and in some cases, with a six-day week...

...Soon they will be at the front door, asking to be let in, and not even Charity will be able to shut them out...

...Sinai Hospital), past president of the Urban League of New York, past vice president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, director of the Henry Street Settlement Children's Aid Society...

...J. A. Katzive, executive director of Maimonides hospital, stated in an interview in the Wall Street Journal that in his experience with the union "things have been entirely satisfactory...

...It provided for "improvement in literary and cultural pursuits," instructions for the workers in "the rules and obligations of citizenship in a free democracy," a contribution of $100,000 from the United Hospital Fund for scholarship assistance to workers and their children, and other amenities which were as far removed from the needs and desires of a man who makes $32 a week as the promise of membership in the Racquet Club...

...Another factor that increased the bitterness of the strike was that it pitted the poorest people of the city against the richest people...

...James Felt (Mt...

...The list could stretch far beyond this, and it is not the intention here to slight any of the other hospital board members with equal or even superior records of good works...

...In an era when labor demands are centered more and more on the shorter week and special benefits, and blue collar workers increasingly are faced with the split-level problems of their white collar brothers, the sudden "discovery" of the forgotten hospital workers provided a shot in the arm and a common, uncontroversial cause to the recently merged New York labor council, which got behind the strikers with unanimous aid and enthusiasm...

...Benjamin Buttenweiser, of the National Urban League, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the American Jewish Committee, was asked by the press to comment on the evictions...

...As one observer of the labor scene described the strike, "This is the most clearcut social issue since the revolt of the gladiators...

...The meeting was held on the stifling night of May 20 in the ballroom of the Hotel Diplomat, a high-ceilinged cavern done in nickelodeon baroque, with gilded cherubs and scarlet draperies...

...And yet, despite what seemed a majority of support from public opinion, as represented by leading citizens who urged that the union be recognized, and despite the combined efforts of the merged union strength of this "labor city," the settlement that ended the strike after six weeks was anything but clear-cut...

...A Puerto Rican worker from Beth David came to the mike to say, simply: "Estados Todos Unidos...

...A worker from Brooklyn Jewish Hospital pointed out that if the hospitals meant what they said, they wouldn't be afraid of having a union...

...After a summer of working under these conditions, the union is far from satisfied...

...The affiliations of a smattering of the members of the boards of directors of the seven struck hospitals give some indication of the kind of men who were fighting the right of their workers to organize: Benjamin Buttenweiser (Lenox Hill Hospital), National Urban League, trustee of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, American Jewish Committee, Foreign Policy Association...

...Tnx Pious proclamation on the part of management that hospitals were "different" and unions would be detrimental to their proper functioning— perhaps even create danger to the lives of the patients—was ridiculous from the start...

...Below the ad, printed in ink on a piece of scrap paper were the words, "We want this life tool" Around the room on folding chairs sat a sprinkling of the aspirants to membership in the advertised affluent society...

...ing the union was a strange thing to behold from men who are philanthropists...

...The plan offered a wage increase of $2 a week...

...One of the biggest of the outbreaks occurred when a class of medical students marched in a parade up Fifth Avene past the Mt...

...Few people disagreed with that sentiment, and a no less sober voice than that of a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court told the hospital management on June 12 that their refusal to recognize the union was "an echo of the nineteenth century...

...Because the voluntary hospitals (the other categories are proprietary hospitals, run privately and for profit, and city and state hospitals) are non-profit institutions, supported largely by charity, they are exempt from state labor laws and also from the Taft-Hartley law...

...Gustave R. Rosenberg (Beth David Hospital), Grand Street Boys Association, National Democratic Club, Mary Mann Philanthropic League, New York Board of Higher Education...

...How messy and disturbing it is when the poor people spoil our parades and demand their own place in the affluent society the magazines tell them they live in...

...Local 1199 president Leon J. Davis said in September that although the Hospital Association agreed in a body to the settlement, its machinery and provisions are only being put into effect in the still small number of hospitals where workers are organized...

...Buttenweiser's answer was: "How ridiculous can you get...

...the most underpaid and poorly benefitted workers in the richest city of the richest nation of the world...

...He said he imagined that this was the first time many of the people in the audience who were Negroes or Puerto Ricans had ever really met and worked in a common cause side by side with white people...

...They are men who build gymnasiums for underprivileged kids and then pay their parents $32 a week and scream bloody murder when they try to join a union...

...Into it were packed nearly 2,000 strikers (double the number alleged by the hospitals to be on strike at the time) and they sat in silence that was broken increasingly by jeers and catcalls as Harry Van Arsdale, president of the New York merged labor council, read the "Hospital Benefit Plan" which had been submitted by management as a substitute for unionization...

...There was general laughter, and it was not pleasant laughter...

...At the last meeting of the strike, when the workers accepted the hospital settlement, one of the New York union leaders got up to say that one result of the strike was the unity that the workers had gained—not only with each other but with officials and members of other unions...

...Many professional people are out, and we're proud to be with you...

...He had already had experience with hospital promises: "I was on a grievance committee the hospital set up once and when we went in to tell them our grievances, they showed us a movie...

...THEY wExE brothers and sisters of poverty, and for the most part of color— as well as of a union—and the special shame of the strike was that their battle had to be waged against the wealthy who claim to be their benefactors as well as their bosses...

...Yet the representatives of the hospital boards never ceased to act as if the coming of the unions was comparable to the coming of the Black Plague...

...Well, they are back there, and they aren't going away...

...He said it was a "practical step...