Temple Hospital strikers defeat gag rule, union-busting demands

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PHILADELPHIA—On April 26, nurses and medical technicians at Temple University Hospital approved a new contract to end their militant 28-day strike. The strikers succeeded in defeating the most objectionable provisions sought by Temple—a “gag rule,” an open shop, staffing changes, and staggered expirations for the union contracts of the two bargaining units.

The provisions of the settlement include a 2% wage increase in July, followed by a 2.5% increase in 2011, and 3% in 2012. Workers will also receive tuition reimbursement for up to six credits for dependents. Cost of health care will increase; with members choosing among three plans, paying either 10%, 20% or 25% of the premium. The differential for working weekends will remain at $5 per hour. Shift differential for night work will be 13% of base rate. The pension contribution by Temple will remain at 8.5% of salary.

On March 31, nurses and technicians at Temple University Hospital went on strike after working without a contract for six months. The 1500 Registered Nurses and professional staff, approximately 1000 of them RNs, are represented by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP).

In preparation for the strike, the union mobilized members and community supporters, taking the fight to various places around the city. After the strike began, workers and supporters protested outside of a City Council meeting, outside the luxury condo of Temple President Ann Weaver Hart, and outside a dinner for Temple University bigwigs.

On the Temple University campus, student supporters, organized by the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), held a “die-in” on a main walkway. Wearing t-shirts reading “my nurse was a scab,” the students “died” for several minutes during a class change while supporters leafleted passersby. Later, the students marched to the administration building to condemn the administration for its complicity in strike breaking.

Strikers received aid and statements of solidarity from the National Nurses Organizing Committee, the California Nurses Association, and from local unions. A statement of support from filmmaker Michael Moore was ... Kirghizia (continued from page 8: “Kirghiz revolt signals growing instability in ex-Soviet republics”)

ing the American influence in Kyrgyzstan.”

Of course, this means, although The Times of Central Asia did not point it out, that the U.S. was hand in glove with the overthrown regime and undoubtedly also has connections with the opposition elites. Reportedly, the presence of the Manas base is unpopular with the Kirghiz people but the new government has declared that it does not intend to consider the status of the base in the near future. A number of English-language journals have said that the U.S. made a mistake by baking Bakiyev, and the Russians profited by their error.

But the coverage of the Kirghiz revolution in the Russian press does not indicate that the Russian authorities are very happy with it. The Putin regime is by no means allergic to corrupt and dictatorial regimes.

The Times of Central Asia argued that Russia does not have the financial means to woo Kirghizia. But that 10 Socialist Action may 2010 John Leslie / Socialist Action read to picketers outside the hospital, which stated: “It is an embarrassment that an otherwise fine institution of higher learning would treat its own nurses and other health professionals with such contempt. Exactly what lesson is Temple teaching to its students when they attack the nurses at their own hospital? That we should beat up on the very people who have dedicated their lives to helping us when we get sick?”

Temple used the services of a union-busting outfit, Healthsource Global Staffing Inc., to hire scabs, offering them up to $10,000 a week. Reportedly, replacements were working 12-20 hour days and up to several days a week.

The dangers of using overworked and unqualified scab labor was illustrated on April 18 when a critical-care patient walked out of the hospital twice to ask picketers for assistance. This patient had to unhook herself from monitors and walk past scab nurses to get to the picket line. There were also reports, by family members of patients, of unsanitary and unsafe practices by replacement nurses; such as incorrect medicine dosages and touching patients without gloves. .

The issues in this strike were more than just wages. Temple management had demanded an end to tuition reimbursement for the children of nurses and techniVyacheslav Oseledko / AFP / Getty Images (Left) Kirghiz opposition activist checks the body of a man killed during April 7 anti-government protest.

is not a rounded assessment.

Russia provides 95 percent of the country’s oil, and would certainly not be averse to using it as a means of pressure. It did so in Ukraine to bring down a regime it considered anti-Russian. And as poor as Russia is, because of its oil income it has the means to suborn a country as small as Kyrgyzstan.

The real rival of the United States in the region, The Times of Central Asia argued, was China, because China has financial resources and “an ideology diametrically opposite” to the U.S.

That was naive. The Chinese rulers may claim to be socialist but they have surrendered to the ideology of capitalism.

On the other hand, Central Asia is China’s natural hinterland, and it is reasonable to expect that, lacking the obstacle posed by the power of the old Soviet Union, it will eventually prevail there.

The Times of Central Asia opined that since the U.S. was now the world’s only superpower, it intended to dominate every region of the world. The U.S. capitalists are certainly greedy and ambitious, as their adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan prove, but nothing demonstrates the limits of their power as obviously as the events in Central Asia and Afghanistan, to say nothing of their failure to achieve any major benefits for themselves from the enormous costs of the Iraq operation.

Moreover, the U.S. capitalists had the bad luck that exactly when the government they had supported morally and materially was overthrown by a mass uprising, scandals emerged about corruption in the supply of the Manas base. Again, two huge American corporations gained the contracts without competition, apparently because of political influence.

The weekly Nation, which has been the leader in exposcians. Traditionally, the children of Temple hospital have gone to Temple University for free or received $7000 a year to attend another institution. On March 9 2009, Temple unilaterally ended the tuition reimbursement program. In January 2010, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ruled that Temple had acted in bad faith and ordered the payment of all money owed to employees.

Temple also demanded that the agency shop fee paid by non-members be discontinued, effectively making the hospital an open shop. This proposal was a knife aimed right at the heart of the union. Another contentious issue was a proposed “gag rule” that would forbid union members or staff from publicly criticizing Temple. This would have made union advocacy for patient safety illegal under the contract.

Management also insisted on its right to dictate staffing levels and assignments at will, sometimes with nurses being switched from patient to patient in mid-shift. PASNAP repeatedly pointed out that the hospital is understaffed and that patient safety is their number one concern.

The staffing situation at Temple Main was exacerbated when the Temple system closed the Northeastern Hospital, laying off hundreds and leaving a vulnerable community without an Emergency Room. After the closing of Northeastern, the number of patients coming to Temple Main increased by more than 10% without any additional staff being added to the payrolls there.

PASNAP’s motivated and mobilized membership, its effective community relations, and its disciplined and high spirited picket lines contrasted with the lack of preparation for the SEPTA transit strike that took place in Philadelphia last winter. The Transport Workers Union gave practically no advance warning or explanation to workers or the public. The result was a lack of public support for the strike, especially since thousands of working-class commuters were stranded as buses and subways stopped service on the first day of the strike.

Temple strikers won a decisive victory over the hospital. Such a victory will be a shot in the arm for union organizing in health care generally and for the Philadelphia labor movement. Speaking at an April 24 union rally, Thomas Paine Cronin, former president of AFSCME DC 47, said: “This is not just your struggle, this is our struggle. Anybody who cares about decent health care, anybody who cares about education, free speech, decent work rules, and the right to join a union—this is their struggle.”

It is possible to win victories in unfavorable political and economic conditions. PASNAP based its strategy on a member-driven approach. They have shown what can be done when the business-union model is rejected. This is a victory that should inspire us all. n ing the corruption of the U.S. privatized wars, reported in an on-line article dated April 21: “Similarly, in nearby Kyrgyzstan, a staging ground for the Afghan war, Mina has another sole source contract, awarded without any announcement, to provide fuel to a huge and controversial base. The contract has been at the center of corruption and kickback allegations, and the companies have been accused of enriching the families of two successive heads of state, both of whom presided over kleptocratic and repressive regimes—an arrangement that fostered great resentment in the country.”

Both the revolution of 2005 and the latest one have exposed a vast network of corruption fueled by the money of shady but giant U.S. corporations. The overthrow of Akaev did not end this corruption, and there is no reason to think that its successor will either.

The only way the Kirghiz people can free themselves from robbers and brutes is to free themselves from the capitalist system as a whole. They have shown twice that they have the capacity to overthrow kleptocratic and tyrannical regimes, not necessarily any more kleptocratic and tyrannical than those of the other successor states of the old bureaucratized Soviet Union, including Russia— or, for that matter, China.

The April 7 Kirghiz revolution is undoubtedly an early bolt of lightning in a storm gathering over the entire former Sino-Soviet bloc, where the socialist aspirations of the peoples were betrayed by corrupt bureaucracies. And the Cuban example shows that when the ruling elites are discredited and the masses are frustrated and angry, a revolutionary leadership may emerge suddenly and carry through a socialist revolution. The historical need for socialist revolution cannot be forever denied, and it can break through unexpectedly. Given the dry tinder that exists throughout the former Stalinist states, a socialist revolution in Kirghizia could set some giant blazes and change the history of the world. n Socialist Action Newspaper International Editor

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