Making the vision real

By Sandra Feldman
President, AFT Healthcare

Unions are no stranger to attacks. As we head into what promises to be a contentious presidential election, we can expect the usual derogatory references to Big Labor and “special interest groups” directed at unions, the implication being that our only concern is advancing the narrow interests of our members. Yes, the AFT is interested in promoting our members’ interests, but we see those interests as part of a larger vision of how we believe America should function—as a free, generous and fair society with the doors of opportunity open to all our citizens. For decades, we’ve directed our energies and our resources to making that vision real.

Our history of involvement has particular significance this May as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision—Brown v. Board of Education—that outlawed segregation in our public schools. The AFT was virtually the only education organization to file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the plaintiffs. We are proud of that decision. We spoke out because we believe in the principles of equality and fairness, and we’ve been willing to act on those principles even when it means paying a price.

At our 1956 convention, for example, the AFT passed a resolution expelling segregated locals. When a number of Southern locals refused to remove the “whites only” language from their constitutions, we forced them to give up their union charters. As a result, we lost more than one-sixth of our membership.

That was only one chapter in AFT’s long fight for a better society, not just for our members but for all Americans. AFT Healthcare has been an important part of that fight for more than 25 years now. From the beginning, our healthcare leaders have advocated not only for better wages and working conditions but also for changes that would make safer, more effective patient care available to all who need it.

That’s why we’re supporting legislated staffing ratios to protect all patients, not just those in unionized hospitals. That’s why we’re pushing for a ban on mandatory overtime, even though many of our members already have restrictions in their contracts. That’s why we’re fighting cutbacks in children’s health insurance programs and Medicaid, and doing all we can to stop the privatization of Medicare.

Perhaps the most important thing we’re doing to improve patient care is simply helping more nurses and health professionals organize unions. In research recently published in Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the authors found that hospitals with unionized RNs have 5.5 percent lower heart attack mortality than do nonunion hospitals. Why? The authors speculate that the presence of a union may reduce turnover, promote autonomy and lead to more collaboration with physicians.

While any of those things might be true, we believe there’s another factor. The presence of a union means there are strong, outspoken, fearless health professionals in that building who are willing to go out on a limb and stand up for their patients and their professions. They have a larger vision of how our healthcare system should function, and they fight for that vision. That’s what it means to be part of a union. We’re proud of what we do for our members, but even prouder of what we do together for America.