Public Employee Press

Hospital Employees Local 420
60 years on the frontlines battling for hospital workers jobs and dignity

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

"Our dedicated members have dealt with crises including TB, AIDS, 9/11 and now Ebola." — Local 420 President Carmen Charles



Municipal Hospital Employees Local 420 celebrated 60 years of fighting for the rights, dignity and jobs of health-care workers with a members' ball and fashion show Sept. 19 and a gala Sept. 25.

"The future of this great union, Local 420, is bright," said President Carmen Charles, who has led the local for 12 years. "I believe in the power of the people who make up this local. We have to stay vigilant. We face many challenges, and as we have in past crises, we will succeed."

Joining in the Sept. 25 celebration were DC 37 leaders, including Executive Director Lillian Roberts, retired AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy and former DC 37 head Stanley Hill, as well as City Council member Daneek Miller and former New York City Comptroller John Liu.

Known for its militancy, Local 420 has long fought on the frontlines of the labor movement. When Roberts came to New York in the 1960s as an organizer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, she led the union forces in the historic drive that brought more than 22,000 public hospital workers into DC 37 locals.

Today, Local 420 represents almost 10,000 members in 18 different job titles who work around the clock to keep New Yorkers healthy regardless of their ability to pay at the public hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities of the Health and Hospitals Corp. Local 420 leaders and DC 37 are constantly pressing lawmakers in City Hall, Albany and Washington to improve funding for public health care.

Early on the union exposed and demanded action to correct squalid and unsanitary conditions — falling ceilings, long-broken dishwashers, torn and dirty mattresses, contaminated food storage — that plagued city hospital units for poor people, while clean, up-to-date affiliated hospital services cared for middle-class patients, sometimes in the same buildings.

Roberts and then-Local 420 President James Butler called out Mayor John Lindsay on the separate and unequal health care facilities and won the mayor's promise to fix the problems at Lincoln, Bellevue and other city hospitals so unionized workers could deliver better health care for all New Yorkers.

When then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller threatened to shutter Sydenham and Gouverneur hospitals in 1976, the city issued a first round of 1,500 pink slips and was ready to lay off at least 3,200 Local 420 members. Roberts prepared the union for action and the members of Local 420 voted to strike to save the jobs of their brothers and sisters. As Roberts recalled those intense times, she said, "Local 420 and the labor movement are about fighting for what is right."

Unionized municipal hospital workers have always fought with their backs to the wall as mayors from John Lindsay to Ed Koch, Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg tried to shutter, sell-off and privatize vital facilities such as Lincoln, North Central Bronx and Coney Island hospitals — which the union and its community partners saved as public institutions — and the Brooklyn Central Laundry at Kings County Hospital, as well as clinics in underserved communities.

Throughout Local 420's 60-year history, mayors have slashed health-care budgets to the bare bones, threatening members' livelihoods as they cut staffing to levels that endangered public health. Each time, roused by smart, steely leadership, members of Local 420 and DC 37 rose up in solidarity and fought back.

The union took the fight for jobs and decent health care to the streets in demonstrations that were passionate and theatrical as Butler, working with DC 37 and AFSCME, would roll out a coffin and the cross or a hospital gurney amid signs saying that HHC was on life support and in need of intensive care.

From Harlem to Brooklyn, Butler led Local 420 in vigils at churches, synagogues and mosques, and outside the mayor's Gracie Mansion home, fighting for workers' rights and human rights.

The union's forceful presence and in-your-face stance spoke truth to power and sent a message that made mayors, HHC presidents and their wealthy neighbors very uncomfortable. Though the rich and powerful tried to privatize services and destroy vital jobs, Local 420's people power usually forced them to reverse their course.

"I am proud to be part of the legacy of Local 420," said Lucy. "You stood steadfast and held HHC accountable in an atmosphere of dignity and respect."

More recently Charles and Local 420 were joined by community leaders, health-care advocates and DC 37 in hearings at City Hall and HHC headquarters against former Mayor Bloomberg's Road Ahead plan that threatened 4,000 HHC jobs, downsized facilities and outsourced services, such as dialysis clinics, food preparation and laundry services.

Although HHC moved forward with the costly and counterproductive plan, "not one member has lost their job," Charles said. "The union succeeded in pressuring HHC to redeploy members to other work assignments.

"In a great display of union solidarity," Public Advocate Letitia James said, "Local 420 was able to end the privatization of the dialysis centers at HHC. That is a victory you can be proud of."

"HHC facilities are designated for crises," Charles said. "Our dedicated members have dealt with tuberculosis, AIDS, hepatitis, 9/11, MERS, SARS, and now Ebola, and we are still here. I am proud to lead this mighty union and to have taken this journey."