Hospital workers in Bend went on strike last month against St. Charles Health System, Central Oregon’s largest employer. This month, it signed a contract raising unionized workers’ wages by double-digit percentages and cementing the role of collective bargaining for around 150 medical technical positions at its Bend hospital. The hospital’s financial leaders deny these wage gains are connected to more than a year and a half of labor organizing.
But, the head of one of the nation’s largest and most powerful unions said Bend is a bellwether. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten made a recent stop in Central Oregon to tout the local union’s victory and personally congratulate members, who in 2019 organized an AFT affiliate for St. Charles’ hospital technicians. Nationally, AFT boasts roughly 1.7 million members.
OPB’s Emily Cureton sat down with Weingarten to ask why the Bend local union struck a chord with national advocates like her, who are pushing for changes to bedrock federal labor laws.
Cureton: What do you think the struggles of the medical technicians in Bend say about the moment we’re living in?
Randi Weingarten: It says that you can change things, even in a pandemic, if you stand together united, and if we have the support of others. For the community to basically say to the hospital: “Be fair to these folks. These folks take care of us, be fair.” That’s what we’re seeing in this moment, which I think is being reinforced by the fact that the new president [Biden] really believes and understands that collective bargaining is a tool for rebuilding a middle class.
Collective bargaining can, on a local level with an employer, actually tailor a contract to the needs of that community, the needs of the workers, and the needs of that corporation in a way that you can’t do in any other real way.
That’s why the National Labor Relations Act was created in the first place by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. It was a way of creating power for workers so that they could have a better piece of the economic pie. But, we’ve had 40 to 50 years of the Chamber of Commerce and big corporations trying to whittle [the regulations] down, trying to change them. And that’s part of the reason why we need the PRO Act.
Cureton: That’s the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. It’s a piece of legislation that so far has passed the House and not the Senate. Can you just describe it in a nutshell?
Weingarten: The PRO Act is basically the 21st century version of the National Labor Relations Act. It is what updates the law that is intended to give workers a voice at work and to correct some of the abuses that have been done in the last 40 years. What’s affected our effectiveness is that we need to organize more. And that’s where the right wing has been so effective in stopping, organizing. And that’s part of the reason that we need the PRO Act. When the National Labor Relations Act was passed, initially you saw a huge surge of union organizing. And the more union organizing you have, the more density you have, the more there’s going to be the ability for workers to have more power. I see this moment as a real resurgence for union organizing.
Cureton: What do you say to people who are skeptical of unions and of their ability to improve people’s lives?
Weingarten: You just have to look at the facts, and that the height of when the middle class was at its ascendancy, when we had workers with a better standard of living. It’s when unions were at their ascendancy. Most of us have to work every single day to feed our families and take a vacation every now and then. Most of us want our families just to have a better life. The way you do that is that you have to have a seat at the table. You have to have a voice. And frankly, when you have that voice, the work you do is better, the quality of the work is better.
Cureton: As former leader of the New York City teachers union, you’ve negotiated with some pretty powerful people, household names like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Do you have tips for being a good negotiator?
Weingarten: You have to listen. As much as your stomach may churn when you’re on the other side of the table from somebody who may be really hateful, you have to really listen to them. You have to have ways to find common ground, and you have to have community support.
This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Copyright 2021 Oregon Public Broadcasting