50 Who Carried The 1199 Torch (Page 10)

Profiles of our pioneers

William J. Taylor

Father Of The Benefit Fund

William J. Taylor rose from making sandwiches and sodas behind drugstore counters to building the nation’s largest union-run healthcare plan.

Taylor joined 1199 in 1937. He was a sodaman and a delegate when the Union consisted of 6,000 New York City drugstore workers in 1948. He was elected an 1199 vice president in that year, and three years later took on the leadership of the Union’s Pension Fund.

Skilled at building the Union’s infra - structure, he also was an indispensable negotiator, often serving as Pres. Leon Davis’s representative in dealings with hospital and political figures. He was a key leader in the 1959 and 1962 strikes that established 1199 as New York’s hospital union.

As 1199 grew in the hospitals, Taylor was elected secretary treasurer and named executive director of the fastgrowing 1199 Benefit Fund. Under his direction the Fund became second to none among union health plans, providing hospital, medical and prescription benefits at no out-of-pocket cost and pioneering in programs such as college scholarships, summer camp, dental care and much more.

Taylor retired in 1979. He became active in the 1199 retirees chapter in Florida and died in 2006.

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Doris Turner

Up From The Ranks

Right from the start, Doris Turner was a fighter.

Turner, 1199’s president from 1982 to 1986, went to work as a dietary clerk at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan in 1956, three years before 1199 arrived in the hospitals. Turner, a black woman who had been raised in Pensacola, Fla., soon discovered two disturbing facts.

First, the white women working with her were paid $5 a week more than she was. Turner protested and won parity. Second, male dietary workers got free meals while women did not. A walkout by Turner and the other women won them free meals.

When 1199 organizers arrived at Lenox Hill in 1959, Turner was ready. She was a leader in the 46-day strike that established 1199 as New York’s hospital Union. Soon after, she joined the Union staff as an organizer.

Her skills as a fighter for workers whose problems she herself had experienced propelled her up the Union leadership ladder. She headed the Union’s Hospital Division for some two decades until, when 1199 founder Leon Davis retired in 1982, she was elected Union president.

Turner’s presidency was marred by internal strife over a then-unsuccessful effort at merger with the SEIU and a disastrous six-week 1984 strike by 50,000 workers at 41 institutions. The strike’s failure strengthened a dissident Save Our Union slate that ousted Turner in the Union elections of 1986.

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Celia Wcislo

Bucking The System

Exec. VP Celia Wcislo, of 1199SEIU’s Massachusetts Region, took a job as a ward secretary at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) in 1973 where a mobbed up SEIU local and an AFSCME local represented the workers.

“We eventually led a movement to get them thrown out. And then we got the local trusteed in 1978 or 1979,” she says. “It was such a wild time. Luckily we were young enough not to realize just how hurt we could have been.”

For the next six years Wcislo would worked part-time as president of the Union while keeping her full time job at the hospital.

“We were the first all women’s slate that had ever won in Massachusetts. It allowed us to create our own rules,” says Wcislo. “We didn’t even know what the rules were, so we could break them.”

In 1981 Wcislo was a leader in organ - izing Boston’s first municipal strike in over 60 years. It was a gamble. But the three-day action at Boston City Hospital was suc cess ful. It secured layoff rights for public workers.

“It was the first time city workers felt they had the right to buck the patronage system,” says Wcislo of the strike at Boston City Hospital.

Wcislo says she’s proud of dedicating her life to helping workers find their own strength. She ardently supported the 2005 merger of locals that created 1199SEIU's Massachusetts Region. “It was such an “ah ha” moment,” she says. “I was sitting in the room listening to Dennis [Rivera] talk about how we could build power for healthcare workers and I was like ‘Yes! We need to do this.’ It just made so much sense.”

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