On November 29, 2011, a majority of the healthcare workers at Good Samaritan Medical Center became the 18th hospital in Florida to cast ballots in favor of forming a union with 1199SEIU.



A total of 10,000 healthcare workers at those 18 hospitals are now represented by 1199SEIU in the biggest union organizing drive the “right-to-work” South has seen in years. Not since the Depression era has Florida experienced an explosion in unionization as during the past year and a half.



But unlike the Depression era when blue collar workers such as cigar rollers, farm workers and paper-mill employees formed unions primarily to improve wages, most hospital workers are looking to collective bargaining to improve the well-being of the people they care for and work with.



“It only makes sense to unionize because it brings more balance and fairness for everyone,” said Patrick Harriott, a transporter at Florida Medical Center, a Tenet facility in Broward County where 300 service and technical workers voted by a 5-to-1 margin to unite with 1199SEIU in May 2011.



Steven Sikora, a respiratory therapist at HCA-affiliated Blake Medical Center in Bradenton looked to the origins of his profession as a reason he believes healthcare workers are joining unions in record numbers. “Those of us in healthcare got started because we wanted to help people,” Sikora said. “But when we are pushed farther and farther from being able to accomplish that goal, we look to unions to help us provide dignified care for our patients and treatment for our co-workers.” Michelle Patterson, a cashier at North Shore Medical Center who is employed by a subcontracted company called Sodexho, expressed similar feelings about her union involvement and its relationship to treatment on the job. “I feel great that more healthcare workers are joining a union,” she said. “It’s very important because of what we have to go through as workers. A lot of us are not treated as fairly as we want to be. Because of our union, we have more unity and more of us know our rights, which helps us do our jobs better.”



“I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish at the bargaining table,” said Patricia Sheron-Diaz, a nurse at HCA-affiliated University Medical Center in Tamarac. “Now, we will have full disclosure of our hospital’s staffing matrix and address staffing issues in writing. We gained some of the strongest language in the country. What an incredible victory for nurses and patients.”



Marilyn Ralat, a nurse at Kendall Regional Medical Center in Miami remarked, “As a nurse, the staffing language is already helping and we haven’t ratified our contract yet. Our nurses are more empowered to make changes for our patients so they receive the high quality service they deserve.



“When nurses lose the fear of speaking up and we utilize the professional training we worked so hard for, we make a difference,” she added. “Just after we reached agreement on the staffing language, I went to work and I only had four or five patients. I was so happy. It changed my entire perspective. I don’t know if it’s going to be forever, but management is making changes that I haven’t seen in years. We are letting them know loud and clear that caring for eight, nine or ten patients at a time does not work.”



What will the long term impacts be for healthcare in Florida now that thousands of healthcare workers formed a union in the last year and a half?



Ralat believes unions help create more jobs by enforcing staffing matrixes that hospitals create themselves in order to deliver care in the most effective way. “When hospitals are chronically understaffed, it means I do my job not just as a nurse, but as a secretary and an environmental worker,” she said. “When I pick up a mop or do extra documentation, I’m taking away a job that belongs to someone else. I want to see healthcare workers working in a thriving industry with enough staff to do jobs that need to be done.”



Sikora believes more people will want to join the healthcare sector when it stands up for quality patient care and good jobs. “When non-union healthcare workers hear when someone’s job or hours were saved or they got paid when they were mistakenly called off, they want to be a part of that. We do this work out of love for our professions. People respond to warmth and the outpouring of love by standing up for what they believe in.”



Since forming their union, 13 newly organized HCA-affiliated hospitals started negotiating their first union contract with six hospitals that had won their first contract more than three years ago. As a bargaining team of more than 100, HCA-affiliated hospital workers identified common problems and sought solutions through collective bargaining and action.



Throughout the course of the contract bargaining campaign, workers signed petitions, delivered messages through cards, cupcakes and letters to managers, all the while organizing each other through old fashioned meetings to get their issues resolved. The result? The bargaining team won a landmark tentative agreement with their employers to address one of the most difficult issues in hospitals: staffing levels.



As a result of hard work and unity, bargaining team members - comprised of nurses, service and technical workers - reached a breakthrough tentative agreement with their employers that includes:



• Strong enforcement mechanisms to ensure hospital compliance,

• Protection for nurses and our licenses who report unsafe staffing conditions and

• More transparency regarding hospitals’ recommended staffing guidelines.

The gains healthcare workers are making in Florida are distinctive given that the reasons many workers cite for joining the union is to put patients’ well-being front and center.



Paul Ortiz, a history professor at the University of Florida remarked, “This group of healthcare workers is doing what politicians and business leaders in the South have not been able to do: simultaneously working to solve the region’s overlapping crises in delivering quality health care and generating living wage jobs.



“This organizing campaign is a tremendous boon to the creation of living wage jobs and delivering higher quality health care in a state whose economy depends on the dollars of seniors and retirees. As such, it is a better strategy for economic development than anything we’ve seen come out of Tallahassee over the past few legislative sessions.”