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LETTERS
To the Editor:
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Professor Patricia Schechter's "The Labor of Caring: A History of the Oregon Nurses Association" in the Spring 2007 issue concludes with a very embarrassing error that should not be left uncorrected. The last sentence quotes Connie Weimer and describes her as a "long time ONA union representative." Weimer is not a union representative. She is a federal mediator charged with resolving labor disputes in the private sector, which she has done since 1984. Schechter would have been more accurate to write that "a long time ago" Weimer was an ONA representative. |
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There are more problems. |
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In the context of the 2001 ONA strike at the Oregon Health Sciences University, Schecter estimates the hourly pay rate of RN's as between $18 and $20. That is way off even without factoring in the value of benefits, which was a major issue in that strike and creates a false impression of that work stoppage, of ONA, of RNs and of reality. The article mentions a decertification effort by the Oregon Federation of Nurses against the ONA but the date is wrong and the forest of an interesting and complex relationship between these two organizations is ignored for this fairly small tree. At least one major strike in the Portland area is unmentioned while strikes by nurses in Minnesota and California are cited. |
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The vignettes on registered nurses prominent in ONA's history are interesting and highlight important diversity within nursing. The pictures summon, no doubt, warm memories for many. But these are minor strong points in an article that, in the end, could have told this story better.
Jim Pruitt
Portland, Oregon |
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To the Editor:
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Regarding Connie Weimer's tenure at the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA), my sentence should more accurately have read "former" organizer rather than "long-time." I am well aware that Weimer became at federal mediator in 1984; that I described her approximately five-year tenure at ONA more expansively than I should have is a fair point (I thought it was ten years). |
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The rest of the issues raised by Mr. Pruitt are substantially without merit. |
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Regarding Oregon Health Sciences University nurse salaries in 2001, the figure $18 to $20 is neither an "estimate" nor is it "way off," as the writer suggests. My sentence clearly indicates that the figure is a "starting range" for wages. I again confirmed these figures for this letter to OHQ. Not only did media sources like the Oregonian report the overall hourly rate for OHSU nurses to be $18 to $28 (see, for example, "OHSU Has Paid $648,000 for Nurses," December 22, 2001), but these figures further check out against the 1999–2001 contract (p. 74, Appendix A-Salary Schedule), which shows $17.23 to $27.43 as the hourly pay range for RN classifications at OHSU for 1999 and $17.68 to $28.12 for 2000. My article also points out desirable benefits available to OHSU nurses in the form of PERS participation. |
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Thus, I must take exception to the writer's critique of my representation of "reality" and his allegation that my essay creates a "false impression" of the strikes causes. "Reality" is exactly what is in dispute in most human conflicts, including labor relations. Was $18 to $28 "really" fair pay? Were benefits "truly" adequate? Were patients actually safe? Did nurses have adequate control over the pacing and quality of their work? People on both sides disagreed mightily because these judgments depend on how the parties defined "wages," "adequate," "safe," "control," and "fair." Even when parties agree on numbers and standards, the value of the numbers and the implementation of standards often remain in fierce dispute. That OHSU was found guilty of unfair labor practices by the National Labor Relations Board via an ONA petition (for giving incentive pay to nurses who crossed the picket line during the 2001 strike) further underscores both aspects of my basic argument about that particular conflict: ONA determination and hospital opposition. |
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I'm also right about the date of 1979 for the election at Bess Kaiser. ONA won representation rights against an AFT affiliate union in elections involving Kaiser RNs at an election held on May 16, 1979. One of many pieces of direct evidence for this date is a vote instruction sheet from the ONA archives captioned "Before You vote, You've Asked for Specific Details," identifying the May 16 date and listing addresses for the nine Kaiser clinics involved in the election, including Bess Kaiser and Sunnyside. Additional documents including letters, flyers, and meeting minutes confirm this date and are filed in the ONA board of director meeting minutes cited in endnote 65. The Kaiser election was a highly symbolic and strongly fought contest in part because ONA had recently lost an election involving the Teamsters at Physicians and Surgeons Hospital. (The Teamsters union did not win; nurses actually voted for "no representation" in two separate votes.) Moreover, my appraisal of these events is far from the "small tree" that the writer suggests. I cite them in order to establish the contextual "forest" regarding the highly contested nature of nurse organizing during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The "interesting and complex relationships" invoked (but not detailed) by Pruitt in these elections are, to be sure, subordinated to the general point I'm trying to make, namely, that ONA nurses faced stiff competition from other unions at that time. The general fact of this competitive environment is in no way compromised by the complexity (or lack thereof) of said relationships, nor were they the focus of my inquiry. |
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Finally, the writer refers to another "major strike in Portland" as "unmentioned" by me but does not actually name it. Thus I am unable to respond to the suggestion that consideration of such strike would challenge my overall interpretation, namely, that sometimes hospitals go to great lengths to control the terms of nurse labor. I did cite major contemporary nursing strikes in other states to set the stage for both nurse and employer choices in 2001 at OHSU, contextual information that both scholars and lay readers usually find salient. |
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In sum, none of the points raised by Pruitt challenge the basic thrust of my essay: that beginning in the 1960s, ONA engaged in effective collective bargaining organizing and inspired both competition from rival unions and opposition from hospitals. It might bear recalling at this point that what I actually found most historically notable about the ONA collective bargaining story are the small-town sensibilities and face-to-face relationships that generated a spirit of cooperation across nurse-doctor and nurse-administrator divides in Oregon. Only in the recent corporate health care era does a more sharply adversarial tone emerge. |
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My essay is an initial attempt to trace out struggles over professional identity, status, money, power, and unionizing for Oregon's RNs using archival documents that have never before been examined by a professional historian. As a first-ever institutional history of the Oregon Nurses Association, mine is the first word on this subject, not the last. If any reader feels that they, in Pruitt's words, "could have told this story better" and then does so, I will consider my own effort a complete success and would eagerly look forward to reading and learning from such a manuscript. |
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Patricia A. Schechter
Portland State University |
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