A New Turn at 1199
Fink, Leon
The beleaguered New York City hospital workers' union, Local 1199, shows signs of renewal. In a rare break with the power of union incumbency, the scandal-ridden regime of President Doris Turner...
...Comparatively little-known and underfinanced, the Save-OurUnion (SOU) campaigners were aided by Leon Davis's public presence as well as by energetic public relations work from old 1199 hand Moe Foner...
...Virtually negating her natural charismatic appeal, Turner shied away from both union members and the press in a reelection campaign marked by desperate appeals for loyalty, blanket charges of racism, and vague attacks on "outsiders...
...The final tally shows the opposition "Save Our Union" slate—led by social worker Georgianna Johnson and backed by a coalition of forces with ties to the union's old Leon Davis leadership—with 19,381 votes to 17,017 for Turner...
...Whither 1199 under new leadership...
...Whether by 1199 on its own or by resuscitating the idea of a nationwide health care union merger, hospital organizing campaigns will receive a needed shot in the arm...
...The administration of Governor Mario Cuomo, however, showed no sympathy for a union leader who had backed Ed Koch in the 1982 Democratic primary and later pulled out of a strike-ending agreement in the summer of 1984...
...In a rare break with the power of union incumbency, the scandal-ridden regime of President Doris Turner was narrowly defeated in a late-April ballot monitored by the Department of Labor...
...A series of legal challenges may well delay president-elect Johnson's installation— just as crucial citywide hospital bargaining talks are set to begin...
...This is probably the biggest win by union insurgents since Ed Sadlowski's 1974 victory for the Steelworkers' district directorship...
...Turner's refusal to make good on the 1984 agreement apparently made even the specter of potentially renewed militancy look better than anarchy in New York hospital industrial relations...
...The SOU platform also commits her to a series of democratic revisions of 1199's traditionally highly-centralized structure...
...Charges of corruption seemingly substantiated by the Department of Labor's investigation of her spring 1984 election victory further set Turner on the defensive and led to an increasingly closed, siege-like atmosphere around her...
...At the same time, her opposition scored with new, unanswered charges of financial misdoings at the top of the union...
...As those who have followed the tangled recent history of Local 1199 might suspect (see "Bread and Roses, Crusts and Thorns," Dissent, Spring 1986), the vote tally itself does not immediately resolve the bitter internal dispute within the union...
...Similarly, management's arm, the League of Voluntary Hospitals, which might have been expected to promote the weak and ineffective status quo within the union, showed no such inclination...
...Like the rise of the union itself, the reasons for Turner's defeat reflect an interplay of influences...
...Taking most of the big hospitals in the city, the insurgents, helped by a sizable Hispanic turnout, cut heavily into Turner's traditional serviceworker base, while winning handily among nurses and professional-technical members...
...In the several weeks prior to the election, she tried in vain to wring some facesaving compromise over the "missing 5 percent" from both the hospitals and the state government...
...There was an unprecedented 54 percent turnout...
...If 1199 can restore itself to full strength nationally, the American labor movement will have regained one of its most spirited and dynamic players...
...Georgianna Johnson, the union's second black woman president, must restore a climate of trust and tolerance within the union...
...A mishandled summer 1984 strike, from which union members never received a signed contract or a promised 5 percent wage hike, seriously eroded 275 confidence in Turner's leadership...
...Such a project inevitably pits Local 1199 against the authority of Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union international President Alvin Heaps, a strong Turner ally...
...Beyond salvaging a solid contract this summer, the new leadership intends to rejoin the National Union of Health Care Workers from which Local 1199 split in 1984...
...So, too, may the political forces concerned with larger changes in American life...
...Although Turner in the end proved her own worst enemy, her relations with powerful forces outside the union likely sealed her defeat...
Vol. 33 • July 1986 • No. 3
