Series 2. Mount Sinai Hospital interviews, 1976-1977, bulk 1977.

ArchivalResource

National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees. Series 2. Mount Sinai Hospital interviews, 1976-1977, bulk 1977.

Series 2. Mount Sinai Hospital interviews, 1976-1977, bulk 1977.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/64755462

Interviews of seventeen individuals associated with Mount Sinai Hospital include 1199 delegates Gayetano Rivera and Gloria Arana (laundry), Elon Tompkins and Jim Bryant (engineering), Sam Schmuckler and Grace Glassberg (laboratory), Ernestine Bowen (dietary), Marie Barkum (housekeeping), Julio Pagan (orderly), Mildred Reeves (nursing), and hospital worker Eddie Sanchez; also interviewed are members of management Martin Steinberg (director, Mount Sinai Hospital), Norman Metzger (vice president, Personnel), Howard Lichtenstein (attorney), Rose Brand and Sylvia Barker (nursing supervisors), and Fritz Field (laundry manager). Topics of the interviews cover the personal backgrounds of the respondents; contacts with the labor movement; workers' political consciousness and identification with the union's values; social relations among workers; levels of education; the racial composition of hospital workers; the identification with the union of workers hired after the 1959 strike; the participation of workers in union affairs; the attitudes of nurses and professional employees toward unions; the work ethic and various ethnic groups; and the cultural and family relations of Puerto Rican workers. Discussed are pre-union working conditions, including work assignments; shift scheduling; wages; hours of work; the racial composition of hospital departments; the organizing campaigns of various unions; fringe benefits; wage adjustments; summer camps for children; Christmas gifts; medical care; the family atmosphere of the hospital; organizing activities of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 144; meal allowance; and eating facilities. Discussion of post-union working conditions includes supervisors' new relationship with the workers; wages; the elimination of arbitrary disciplinary procedures; the union as an advocate for workers; seniority; grievance administration under the Permanent Administrative Committee (PAC); dues collection; the reinstatement of strikers; job security; the compensation system; position classification; job rotation; turnover; layoffs; technological changes in the laundry department; bi-lingual union delegates; overtime; sick leave; the way membership meetings are conducted; the demand for skilled workers; the autonomy of hospital departments; the institution of personnel policies; the workers' reaction to the PAC; the reorganization of hospitals; the effects of the Guild on professional workers; the role and responsibilities of union delegates; the effects of the no-strike pledge and compulsory arbitration on the union's power; labor-management cooperation; union benefit plans; expansion of hospital facilities; probationary period; job mobility; promotions; and collective agreements. Issues relating to the organizing campaign, strike and collective negotiations include signing of membership cards; organizing activities; strike conduct and pickets; strike benefits; donations of food and carfare; the effects of the strike on workers who lived in the hospital; the treatment of scabs and volunteers; alleged threats by supervisors; organizing meetings; workers' fears of dismissal for union activity; alleged police brutality and arrests of strikers; union administration under the PAC; militancy of Hispanic delegates; striker morale; and community support for strikers. Also discussed are Adam Clayton Powell's and Martin Luther King's visits to the hospital; coordination of organizing activities by hospital departments and communication between union organizers, union officials and workers; participation in strike activities by members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) District 65; the role of the Engineering Department in the organizing campaign; the assignment and scheduling of picket teams; Harry Van Arsdale's participation in strike activities; support of the media and press for the hospital strike; the passage of collective bargaining legislation; nursing staff participation in the organizing campaign; community volunteers' participation in strike activities; and the resistance to unionization by New York and Presbyterian Hospitals. Also discussed is the involvement of 1199 staff, leaders and organizers in the Mount Sinai campaign, including the jailing of Leon Davis; jurisdictional disputes between 1199 and SEIU Local 144; the growth of 1199; and the role of 1199 vice presidents and area directors in the union's activities and administration of collective agreements. Issues concerning hospital administration, supervisors and boards of trustees include the role of supervisors in training and worker discipline; the centralized functions of the nursing staff; changes in the character of nursing services; the autonomy of supervisors; Mt. Sinai's policy of humanitarian benevolence; the administration of the nursing school; changes in the professionalization of nursing; the institutional growth of hospitals; changes in the ethnic composition of nursing staffs; the training of supervisors in labor-management relations; the union's effect on supervisor's autonomy; Metzger's policy of labor-management cooperation; the participation of community volunteers in nursing activities; in-service training of nursing staff; MDTA upgrading of jobs; supervisors' opposition to the organizing campaign; Metzger's relationships with workers, supervisors and delegates; the management policy of hiring family members; strikebreaking activities of management; Martin Steinberg's reaction to the strike; discrimination against workers for union activity; Mayor Wagner's efforts to mediate a strike settlement; and the roles of Harold Felix, Harry Van Arsdale, Charles Silver, David Livingston, Jesse Freedman, Robert Feinberg, and Edward Coffee in the strike settlement. Also discussed is the use of the Toledo Plan in formulation of PAC policies; meetings of hospital administrators with Davis; administration of the PAC; participation of Catholic hospitals in the PAC; effects of the Davies Committee on PAC structure; financial and social interests of hospital boards; the establishment and administration of the League of Voluntary Hospitals (LVH); New York State and New York City subsidization of voluntary hospitals; hospitals' opposition to passage of collective bargaining legislation for hospital workers; the influence of Jewish philanthropists and boards of trustees on Mt. Sinai administration; union recognition and compulsory arbitration with no-strike pledge; the union's demands for wage adjustment and per diem patient care costs; Metzger's role in the PAC and the LVH; the role of third party payers in hospital labor-management relations; the impact of inflation on health care costs; lobbying activities of the Greater New York Hospital Association; changes in personnel practices, position descriptions, compensation systems, the personnel manual and statistics on turnover; Metzger's role in the formulation of a collective agreement; employee representation on the PAC; John Lindsay's policy on strike settlement; unionization and civil rights; and reorganization of Mt. Sinai Hospital.

17 transcripts (440 p.)

Cornell University Library