Organization and Unionization of Health Workers in the United States: The Trade Union Perspective

Abstract

Recent legislation in Washington opened the door to organization and unionization of health workers in voluntary hospitals and highlighted the poor pay and unorganized status of this enormous work force of at least 1.5 million persons, many of whom are women, black, or Spanish-speaking. The authors, who are senior officials of District 1199 of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, chart the factors associated with the low priority given over the years to organizing hospital workers, and the first breakthroughs, in New York City hospitals, in 1958. From a start with lowest income hospital workers, the subsequent inclusion of technical and professional workers and linkages with the civil rights movement, the authors trace the move toward national organizing that began with the highly publicized hospital workers' strike in Charleston, South Carolina in 1969. The benefits of unionization and the broader social goals of the union are discussed.